Jungle Fever
by Calliatra
Summary: When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge and the Casefile Challenge at NFA.
1. Prologue

**Jungle Fever**

_by Calliatra_

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Tony whump.

* * *

><p><strong>Dedication<strong>

_To Nat,_

_My beta,_

_For her patience, her honesty, and her encouragement._

_Thank you for helping me become a better writer._

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Dark. It was dark. Dark and freezing. Instinctively, he tried to shift his body, tried to get away from the icy cold that seemed to pierce the skin on his back, and groaned as white hot pain flashed through his skull. Clearly moving was a bad idea. He settled on trying to see. Blinking several times did nothing to improve his vision, however. The world was still black. No, wait – the right of his field of vision seemed a little lighter than the other side. Mindful of the throbbing behind his eyes he turned his head slowly, carefully avoiding jerky movements. Yes, there was a definite source of light there. Rather than black, it seemed to glow dark blue. Not enough light to illuminate the rest of the darkness, but it was already comforting to know that there was something other than pure blackness.

He tried to move towards the light, mostly on instinct and with only the vague idea in the back of his head – or what was left of the back of his head, considering how loudly his nerve endings were screaming – that maybe he could see more from there, but found he couldn't budge. His arms and legs didn't seem to want to cooperate. Was he paralyzed? No, he could feel his legs, feel the cold digging into them, though with less of a bite than it had where his back was concerned. His arms, on the other hand, were warm. Warm was good. Unless warm meant they were simply too numb to feel the cold. In which case warm was bad, very bad.

Focusing on the good news seemed like the altogether better strategy, so he concentrated on trying to get his legs to work. They seemed to want to, he could feel his muscles straining but something was stopping them. A pressure on his ankles… ropes? And now that he knew what to look for, he could feel the same around his wrists. Cautiously, he assessed his situation.

He was lying on his back on a hard and freezing cold surface. His feet were tied together and his hands were bound in front of him. Judging by the difference in temperature on his skin, he was wearing pants, but no shirt. That was a problem, a problem that went beyond the fact that he felt like his skin was freezing to the ground below him. The shirt, there was something important about the shirt. The collar in particular. Underneath the collar… a wire! He had been wearing a wire, hidden underneath that shirt. He remembered speaking into it, and receiving a response so full of static that he could barely make out McGee's voice… McGee's voice! He must have been wearing an earwig, too. Was it still there, now? He couldn't tell.

"McGee? Can you hear me?" Maybe his shirt was lying somewhere nearby. Maybe the wire was still in attached. Maybe it was still transmitting. It was only the slimmest of chances, but it was the only one he had, at the moment. His voice was raspy, but loud enough to carry. He paused, hoping, praying for a response. There was none.

"McGee? You there?" Nothing. Not even a crackle of static. Technically, that could mean anything. It could just mean he's lost his earwig, that McGee could still hear him over the wire, that he could trace him and send someone to come find him. Somehow he didn't think so, though.

He sighed and tugged at the ropes. They didn't give. His voice was all he had, for now.

"Hello?" A hoarse shout this time, directed at the outside world, wherever it was. "Can anyone hear me?" There was no answer. Nothing but a slow, steady drip of water somewhere in the blackness.

Damn, Tony thought. How the hell had he gotten himself into this?


	2. A Headless Petty Officer

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter ****Warnings:** A decapitated body (though not described in detail)

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One: A Headless Petty Officer<strong>

"All I'm saying is that maybe there's a reason your date stood you up, Tony. Has she, oh, I don't know, spoken to you?" It was just another Tuesday morning in the NCIS headquarters and the squad room was filled with the kind of light banter that indicated the beginning of another workday, as the new shift took a moment to settle in before getting down to business. In the case of Gibbs' team, it was also a good indication of the fact that their boss was nowhere to be seen.

"Very funny, McGiggles. I'll have you know that she actually gave me her number before I ever had a chance to ask for it."

"Well maybe she came to her senses."

"Or maybe something came down and she could not make it?" Ziva offered.

"Up, Ziva, up."

"Up?"

"Things come _up_, not down. Well, sometimes something comes down to something, but in this case something came up. Unless it didn't and it just comes down to her standing me up."

"Agh, this language is confusing! Why must simple words always change their meanings? How can I ever know if I am supposed to 'come up' or 'go down'?"

"Only ones going down around here better be the dirtbags we _take_ down." Gibbs strode into the Squad Room, saving Tony from having to formulate a response. "Grab you gear. Dead petty officer found in a warehouse twenty minutes from here."

* * *

><p>The warehouse turned out to be part of an old and partially crumbling warehouse complex. The front gate had either been left open in anticipation of their arrival, or because no one saw any point in closing it. The only set of fresh tire tracks on the dirty pavement showed them the way, and soon they were pulling up next to a police car.<p>

"What've we got, Detective?"

A heavy-set man in his mid-forties with a noticeably receding hairline tiredly looked up from his notebook as Gibbs approached him, flashing his badge. "Decapitated body. Male, Caucasian, looks to be about thirty, wearing a navy uniform. That's why we called you guys." Privately, Detective Reynolds was really hoping the navy cops would take this case off his workload. He already had three homicides with few suspects and even less evidence to deal with.

"Who found the body?"

"Security guard. Was making his rounds and noticed a door open that wasn't supposed to be. Was pretty clear that guy was dead, so he called us right away. Told him to wait over there," Detective Reynolds jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the uniformed security guard who was leaning against a wall, smoking, "Figured you folks might want a word with him."

"Thanks, Detective." Gibbs started off in the direction of the guard.

"That mean you takin' this?" Reynolds called after him.

"We're taking it," Gibbs confirmed without turning around or breaking his stride. "DiNozzo, shoot and sketch, David, dust for prints, McGee, bag and tag."

"On it, boss."

"And what's taking Ducky so long?"

"Well, you know, not everyone can cut down a half hour drive to fifteen minutes, Boss… not that I'd ever complain about your driving… Right. Shutting up and doing my job."

Tony let out a breath when he caught sight of the body. "Yeesh. Definitely not how I would want to go."

"Why not? Decapitation is usually smooth and swift. Just one cut and you are dead." Trust Ziva to be practical about such things.

"That's just it! It's an execution, not a fight. If they can execute you, that means you've already lost; having your head cut off is just additional humiliation. No, I want to go down in a hail of bullets and a blaze of glory. Like Gerard Butler in _300_, if they'd used bullets instead of arrows. Or Paul Newman and Robert Redford in _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_. Well, except for the part where they're the bad guys.

"I have never heard of them."

"You don't know Robert Redford? Seriously? Come one, _The Candidate_? _Out of Africa_?"

"I am not up to date on African politics."

"They're _movies_, Ziva. Really, reallyfamous movies."

"Well, why did you not just say so? Anyway, we should focus on the Petty Officer. Clearly he was not beheaded here."

"Yeah, no blood. So this is just a dump site. But if it's just a dump, why arrange the body so carefully? I mean, it wasn't just tossed here. Whoever it was carefully put the head where it belongs, but left enough room in between it and the neck to make clear that it's been cut off. It's like the killer wanted to send a message."

"A threat or a warning, perhaps?"

"But then why dump him here, where no one ever looks? If his death was supposed to scare others, shouldn't he have been dumped where the others, whoever they are, could see him?"

"Maybe they witnessed the actual killing? Or at least the dumping of the body?"

"It's possible. But in that case our killer must feel really safe, 'cause he'd have at least one witness to his murder."

"A gang, maybe, where the killer is high up enough that no one would dare to speak out against him?"

"Beheadings aren't usually gang MO. No, there's something definitely hinky about this."

* * *

><p>Up close, the security guard looked young, young and shaken. The hand holding his cigarette was trembling. In Gibbs' estimation, the worst he'd seen on this job up until today was probably a couple of teenagers playing hooky.<p>

"You find the body, Officer…?"

"Lambert, sir. Yes, I did, sir."

"How?"

"I was doing my rounds just like usual, sir, and I saw that the side door to Warehouse C was slightly open. Everything's supposed to be locked up tight, so I went and checked. The door looked like it had been jimmied, and when I pushed it open I saw… I saw the body, sir."

"Did you go in? Touch anything?"

"No, sir, nothing except the door. I mean, the guy was clearly dead. I called the police right away."

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on your rounds?"

"No, sir. Everything was like it always is."

"When was the last time you passed Warehouse C?"

"Yesterday morning. Security's not very tight here, sir. I come in every morning at seven thirty to check if something happened during the night. I patrol the whole area, that takes me about an hour and a half, and then I leave."

"There's no security at all the rest of the time?"

"The gate is locked, sir. And there's cameras set up, but they don't work. There's nothing here anyone would want to steal, mostly just packing materials and stuff."

"So anyone could have come and gone here undetected anytime after 0900 yesterday."

"Uh, I guess, sir."

"Who knows about that? Who makes your schedule?"

"I get my schedule from the security company I work for, sir. It's been the same for this place ever since I started three years ago. Anyone could know that, it's not exactly secret. There's not that many homeless in this area, but the few who are figured out to stay out sight in the mornings pretty quickly. I don't know who knows about the cameras, though, sir."

"All right. Call us if you think of something else that might help."

"Yes, sir." Gibbs handed him a business card with a curt nod and headed over to Ducky, who had just arrived and was kneeling next to the body.

"We got a name yet, Duck?"

"According to his ID, this young man is Petty Officer Third Class Jeffrey Thorne."

"Time of death?"

"The body is in full rigor, which indicates that Petty Officer Thorne has likely been dead for eight hours at least, but not more than, say, thirty hours. Probably somewhat closer to the latter, as a cold environment such as this one slows the conversion of glycogen into lactic acid, which is of course what causes rigor mortis. But really, Jethro," here the Medical Examiner looked up reproachfully, "a little patience could go a long way. If you would at least give me the time to insert the liver probe before asking, I could give you a far more exact estimate, you know."

Properly chastened, Gibbs waited only slightly impatiently.

"Ah, here we go. Core body temperature is 61.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and with an environmental temperature of 34 degrees, that puts the time of death at… approximately 21 hours ago."

"Noon yesterday."

"It would appear so. Of course, that is only an approximation. Our Petty Officer could have died anywhere between 16 and 25 hours ago. Ordinarily one would expect the body to be slightly further along the path of decomposition, but the cold accounts for the slowing of that process as well."

"Gotcha, Duck. I guess I shouldn't ask yet if the cause of death is what it looks like?"

"No, I daresay you should know better, Jethro."

"All right. Let me know as soon as you have something." Gibbs didn't wait around for an answer, instead heading off to examine the back of the warehouse for signs of recent disturbance.

"So, Tony," Ziva started, in a suspiciously casual voice, "What is her name?" They had moved to examine the broken lock on the side door, and were therefore out of their boss' earshot.

"Whose name? If you mean our petty officer, he's a guy. Unless you know something that I don't…"

"_Her_ name. The woman you haven't stopped thinking about since last night. The one who did not come to your date."

"What makes you think I haven't stopped thinking about her? I didn't even get to know her!"

"Exactly."

"I didn't even have a chance to start liking her, so I must be deeply upset about her? I think you need to double-check your logic there, Zee-vah."

"It is not about liking her, it is about you. She stood you up and you don't understand why she would do that to you."

"Or _maybe_ I just figure it's her loss and forget about it. I can get a date with a hot chick any day of the week if I want to."

"Yes, but going out with a 'hot chick' will not help you answer the questions about the one from last night."

"Oh, come on, do you seriously think-"

"Uh, guys? I think you should take a look at this." The tone of McGee's voice had Tony and Ziva at his side in an instant, with Gibbs only a second behind. They were now on the very far side of the windowless warehouse, and the only light was coming through the cracks in the ceiling. Tony crouched next to his partner and squinted into the semi-darkness, trying to see what he was staring at. A large crate stood out as a darker shadow, its top now at his eye level. There seemed to be something on top of it, an odd, small shape… Then McGee shined his flashlight onto the crate, and he suddenly found himself face to face with a dead squirrel. A beheaded dead squirrel.

"Okay, this officially just went from weird to really creepy."

7


	3. A Tropical Lead

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Autopsy findings, squirrel trivia

**A/N: **In case you were wondering, yes, Palmer's Aunt Agatha is indeed inspired by Bertie Wooster's Aunt Agatha. I was going to name her something else, but then I figured, what the hell, this is fanfiction anyway, why bother trying to hide the characters I'm st- er, borrowing? So, many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two: A Tropical Lead<strong>

"What've we got?" Gibbs' question – brusque, as always – announced his entrance into the squad room.

Tony quickly scrambled out from behind his desk. "Fingerprints confirm our beheaded guy is really Petty Officer Jeffrey Thorne." With a click of the remote, he made Thorne's greatly magnified ID picture appear on the monitor. "Twenty-four years old, unmarried, no children. Lives in Norfolk, Virginia. Deployed to the USS Truman, which docked in Norfolk on Sunday afternoon."

Ziva came up next to him and continued. "He works in the supply corps. He reports to the Supply Officer, Commander Frank Nelson. I have not been able to reach him yet, he is apparently tied in with the restocking process." Nobody bothered to correct her, this time.

McGee took over. "I checked Thorne's bank and credit card statements and his phone call history. He doesn't have much money, but he doesn't spend much, either. The only regular calls are to his parents. Nothing looks suspicious, so far. I pulled his file, and according to his superiors he was dedicated and good at his job. The only negative incident on file is a fight he got into with a bunkmate after he reported him for drug use."

"Could that be a motive for murder?" Tony wondered out loud. "You tattled on me, so I'll kill you?"

"Doesn't matter, 'cause it can't be that guy. I looked into it, Boss," McGee said, turning to Gibbs, "He was processed for Administrative Separation, but he died of an overdose before anything was decided."

"So what you're saying is you have nothing."

All three squirmed under Gibbs' glare, but had to admit to the fact.

"I'm going to see what Ducky's got. You'd better have something for me when I get back." With that he headed for the elevator.

"How are we supposed to have something?" Ziva complained. "There is nothing to be had. Petty Officer Thorne has never done anything wrong. He does not even have a parking ticket! He does not have money and he was not working on anything important. Why would anybody kill him?"

"Well," Tony considered, "if there's no logical reason to kill him, it's gotta be something personal. This guy was more of a goody two-shoes than McGee, and he's a tattletale. He probably didn't exactly make friends that way."

"You're thinking someone got angry enough to kill him?" McGee didn't look convinced.

"I'm thinking he's the kind of guy everybody hates even more than the Agent Afloat, 'cause he comes without a badge and the general warning to stay away. I'm thinking we should talk to the people he worked with, see if there's someone who really had it in for Thorne. You know, someone who thought he was a real _thorn_ in his side."

McGee rolled his eyes at the forced pun. "We should call his parents, too. If he was having problems with someone, maybe he told them."

"Are we not forgetting something?" Ziva asked. "The manner of Petty Officer Thorne's death!" she clarified, exasperated, when her teammates looked at her blankly. "Why cut his head off? There are far more efficient ways to kill a man. And why do the same thing to the squirrel? That does not seem like a man killing his enemy because he hates him."

"You're right, it doesn't," Tony confirmed. "But until Abby and Ducky get back to us, we have no clues, no suspects and no leads. Do you want to be the one to tell Gibbs that we don't have any ideas, either?"

Ziva's silence was answer enough.

* * *

><p>In Autopsy, Ducky was bent over the body of Petty Officer Thorne, checking for any small marks he might have missed, a job he did not trust his assistant with. Jimmy was, therefore, currently unoccupied.<p>

"Why would anyone do something like this, Doctor? It's just awful. He must have been so innocent and happy. And then someone cuts his head off, just like that." Jimmy was utterly oblivious to the odd look the ME gave him upon hearing his description of the victim as "innocent and happy." "I mean, how could they? He's just so adorable! If I'd seen him, I'd have wanted to cuddle him, not kill him."

"I'm not sure Petty Officer Thorne would have been comfortable with that, Mr. Palmer," Ducky said disapprovingly. Really, his assistant was certainly an odd duck (no pun intended). "Though no doubt he would have preferred unwanted attention of that kind to the murderous kind."

"What?" Jimmy was flummoxed. "Oh! Oh, no, Doctor, I didn't mean the Petty Officer! I was talking about the squirrel!" He cast another fond look at the beheaded rodent's carcass.

"And what, pray tell, made you feel that the squirrel was more worthy of your attention that our Petty Officer?"

"Oh, er, well, nothing. I mean, of course he's the first priority. It's just, well, you let me do the autopsy on the last squirrel we had, so I thought I should prepare for this one, you know, get to know our 'guest'? I was just thinking, he was probably a lot like the squirrels I used to play with when I was a kid. See, I would often spend my summer vacation at my Aunt Agatha's estate out in the country, and there were squirrels all over the place there. So I'd always leave walnuts on the terrace for them, and after a while they started trusting me." His face seemed to glow with the recalled youthful joy. "Aunt Agatha was furious, though. She was terrified of squirrels, and when she found out that I'd been feeding them on her terrace she sent me home and told me to never come back." His eyes assumed a faraway look as he remembered.

"Ah." The good doctor didn't really know what to say to that. "Did you know, Mr. Palmer, that some evolutionary biologists believe that humans have an instinctive, primordial fear of mice and rats – and, in your aunt's case, squirrels – because our ancestors had good reason to be afraid of them? Archeologists have found fossilized evidence of enormous rodents who would certainly have been a danger to early man. Take, for example, the Castoroides ohioensis, the giant beaver of North America. It was up to eight feet long and weighed up to two hundred pounds! A fearsome creature, wouldn't you say? Yes… by comparison our fellow here," He walked over to the second autopsy table and took in the small, furry form that appeared quite forlorn on the vast expanse of icy steel, "would seem rather harmless."

"Aunt Agatha wouldn't have thought so," Jimmy laughed. "She always said she'd kill the beasts if she got her hands on one."

"Then perhaps we ought to be looking at your aunt as a potential suspect in this investigation?" Ducky said, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, no! She could never actually kill a squirrel, she's much too afraid of them. She would always run away shrieking if she just saw on in the distance." He chuckled at the memory.

At that moment, the Autopsy doors slid open with their typical, understated whoosh, announcing the arrival of Special Agent Gibbs.

"Got anything for me, Duck?"

"Well, I do believe we have just eliminated Mr. Palmer's aunt as a suspect in this crime."

Gibbs' reaction to this news was to glare at Jimmy, who in turn blushed and started stammering. "It's just, you see, my Aunt Agatha, she's scared of squirrels, and so we saying… actually that's not important, you're here for the findings on Petty Officer Thorne and, uh, you know what, I'll just… go now." He shuffled out, but not without throwing a terrified glance behind him at the steely-eyes Team Leader.

"That boy…" Ducky shook his head; "I don't know what to do with him at times."

"The body, Duck?" Gibbs was in no mood to discuss the issues with Palmer.

"Right. You will be interested to know, Jethro, that decapitation was not what killed Petty Officer Thorne. The beheading was, I'm afraid, postmortem. If he had still been alive, there would have been very heavy bleeding, yet most of the blood remains in this body. Clearly the heart was no longer pumping when the neck was severed."

"Then how'd he die?"

"I found blood in his stool, and some in his urine as well. I also found kidney and liver damage, inflammation of the mouth, throat and stomach and, perhaps most interesting of all, blisters on the lips. All of this together leads me to believe that our Petty Officer was poisoned. I have sent samples up to Abby, hopefully she will be able to identify the toxin."

"Why would someone poison him and then cut off his head?"

"I believe, Jethro, that part is your job. But I have some addition information that might help you. The lividity marks on the body are inconsistent with the position it was found in in the warehouse, meaning it was dumped after lividity had already set. Typically, lividity is set after approximately ten hours, so-"

"So the body was dumped sometime after 2200."

"Precisely. And if you'll take a closer look at our Petty Officer's hands, you'll notice that they're darker than the rest of his skin, indicating that blood flow was restricted."

"His hands were tied?" Gibbs frowned.

"His feet, as well. It appears he was lying on his back with his arms tied in front of him when he died, which leads me to believe he was held captive."

"We know where? How long?"

"Impossible to say. We can only hope Abby found trace evidence on his clothes that can tell us something."

"All right, thanks, Duck."

Gibbs was almost at the door when Ducky called out. "Oh, Jethro, could you send Mr. Palmer back in? I do believe he is lurking by the elevator."

* * *

><p>Abby's lab was, as always, vibrating with the cacophonous sounds she called music. Abby herself was at her worktable, busily lapping at something set on top of it.<p>

"Hi, Gibbs!" she called out between licks.

"Hey, Abs." Gibbs' tone was ever so slightly apprehensive. Getting closer, he managed to make out a row of lollipops, set up in rack ordinarily meant to hold test tubes. As he watched, she bent forward to lick another lolly, marked something on a chart, then moved on to the next one.

"What are you doing?" Having recognized the presence of candy, he was now merely curious. Sweets of any kind had a tendency to make his favorite forensic scientist act a little odd.

"I," Abby proclaimed seriously, "am solving one of the world's oldest mysteries. Okay, well, maybe not one of the oldest, but it's been around since, like, 1970, so it's definitely _pretty_ old."

Gibbs winced slightly, then looked questioningly at her.

"'How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop!'" she exclaimed, as if it were self-evident. "Do you know that there's no reliable study on that? There've only been five so far, and the results range from 3500 licks to 143! Well, I'm going to do it right. I'm starting with these ten to get rough data for a mathematical model, and then I'm going assemble a representative sample and run a full study to test the hypothesis!" She smiled satisfiedly.

"That's great, Abs," Gibbs remarked indulgently, "but what about Petty Officer Thorne?"

Abby shot him a reproachful look. "You didn't exactly give me much to work with, you know. No fingerprints at the scene, no DNA or hair samples, no footprints, no tire tracks, no nothing!"

"You got his clothes. And Ducky said he sent you some samples."

"Right, he did, which is why I can now tell you exactly what poisoned Petty Officer Thorne. It was…" Abby flourished the computer mouse and the typical diagram of substance analysis appeared, "Croton oil!"

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's nasty stuff, Gibbs, I mean _really_ nasty. It's the oil extracted from the seeds of the Croton tiglium, or Purging Croton, a plant usually found in tropical Southeast Asia and India. If it comes in contact with the skin it causes blisters immediately, and if you swallow even just a few drops it'll kill you, painfully, within fifteen minutes."

"Where can you get this stuff?"

"I really don't know, Gibbs. This kind of oil really isn't good for anything but poisoning, and there are easier ways to do that. It was used as a purgative in the 16th century, but it's much to dangerous to be used as medicine these days. I think some labs use it on animals to study pain and pain relief, which is really cruel and inhuman and just _horrible_, but those things are tightly controlled. It's not like somebody could just walk out of there with a vial of deadly poison."

"So…?"

"Well, if _I_ really needed the stuff, the easiest way would probably be to get a plant and extract the oil myself. But why would anyone bother? There are a ton of other poisons you can get much more easily that will kill someone just as effectively. Why go to all the trouble to get croton oil?"

"I don't know, Abs, but I'm going to find out. Great work." Gibbs made to head out the door.

"Wait! I've got more!"

Gibbs turned on his heel and followed Abby back to the worktable, where, next to the lollipop rack, sat an evidence jar which Abby held up for him to see.

"Look at this!"

Gibbs squinted, trying to make out a shape in the seemingly empty jar. "A hair?" he guessed.

"Yep. The only one on his clothes that didn't belong to Thorne."

"What'd you get from it? You got anything about the person it's from?"

"Nope," she grinned happily. When Gibbs gave her an irritated glare, she elaborated. "I can't tell you anything about a person because it's not from a person. This," she inserted a dramatic pause and brandished the small jar for effect, "is a hair from a Panthera tigris tigris!"

"A tiger?" Gibbs sounded startled, which was quite a feat to achieve.

"Not just _any_ tiger, Gibbs. A Bengal tiger! They're on the endangered animals list, there's only about 2500 left in the wild, so it's not like Thorne could have come across one just anywhere."

"Well, where then?"

"Bengal tigers are usually found Indian rainforest. It looks like Petty Officer Thorne," Abby grinned and inserted a dramatic pause, "has been touring the jungle!"


	4. A Clue on a Ship

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Uh... does a paper cut count as violence?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three: A Clue on a Ship<strong>

"Ugh!" Ziva groaned as she slammed down the phone with more violence than was strictly necessary. "It is as if they are trying to be deliberately unhelpful!"

McGee looked up from his computer. "Did you manage to get anywhere?"

"Commander Nelson will make time for us. We will also have the opportunity to interview the men Petty Officer Thorne worked with. They are not happy about it, but I finally _persuaded_ them that it was in their best interest to cooperate with us. Did you get any information from the parents?"

"Nothing much. According to his mother, Jeffrey loved his job and the Navy and had no enemies. She said his coworkers all liked him and his commander appreciated and trusted him. If he was having trouble with someone he obviously didn't tell his parents about it."

Both turned to look at Tony, clearly hoping he had he had found something, anything, to keep them from having to tell Gibbs that they once again had nothing. Tony, however, was entirely focused on his cell phone and took no notice of them.

"Heeey, Camille. It's Tony. You know, from last night? Well, if there had been a 'last night.' We had a date, and you didn't show? I'm sure something important came up, 'cause, I mean," Tony flashed a thousand megawatt smile as if it would somehow be transferred through the phone, "why would you willingly miss out on a date with me?" He gave an exaggerated laugh. "Anyway, call me when you get a chance. Bye."

"The woman who stood you up, she is still on your brain then, yes?"

"It's 'mind', Ziva. As in '_Mind_ your own business.'"

"Wow," McGee observed with a slight smirk, "She must've really gotten under your skin, Tony."

"Don't be ridiculous, McCelibate. Women don't get under my skin! I'm just… curious. There's got to be a reason she didn't show."

"What does it matter? You could just forget her and move on to the next. Unless," This time it was an unmistakable full smirk, "she got under your skin."

"Do you have anything useful, Tony, or did you spend the whole time worrying about _Camille_?" Ziva asked, slightly exasperated.

"I do, actually. Here, look." He brought up a picture taken outside the warehouse up on the large screen, and got up to stand in front of it. The other two followed suit.

"It's the warehouse." McGee stated the obvious, since Tony was giving no indication of explaining. "What are we supposed to be looking at?"

"The ground."

"The ground?"

"Of course!" Sudden realization brought not triumph, but chagrin to Ziva's face. "I should have noticed it right away! The tracks!"

When McGee still looked confused, Tony took pity on him. "The road had clumps of dirt on it, and before we came the only other set of tire tracks was from Metro's car. So the question is-"

"How did the killer get the body into the warehouse if he didn't drive there?" McGee had caught up.

"Exactly. I'm going to send all the pictures to Abby, maybe she can find something we missed."

Tony had just hit 'send' when the elevator dinged in announcement Gibbs' arrival. "Grab your gear," he ordered as he headed to his desk to do the same.

"Where are we going, Boss?" Tony was the first one to follow Gibbs back into the elevator.

"According to Abby, on a tiger hunt."

* * *

><p>Upon arrival at the USS Truman, they were met by a slightly frazzled-looking Chief Petty Officer who was clearly trying to work out a way to accommodate them without disturbing his commander.<p>

"We need to speak to the Commander," Gibbs growled after a few sentences of stalling, his patience running thin. "One of his men was killed and you're telling me he has better things to do than to cooperate with our investigation?"

"No, sir, but Commander Nelson is in a very important meeting right now. You can see him in an hour. In the meantime, he's made sure all of Petty Officer Thorne's close coworkers are available, if you'd like to interview them?"

Gibbs glared, but followed the young man into an office with several desks.

"This was Petty Officer Thorne's desk." Their guide pointed it out. "Petty Officers Drew, Carrol and Mendez worked with him here every day."

"We need to speak to you individually," Gibbs said, directly addressing the three men who were trying and failing to not look to interested in the NCIS agents. "There a room we can use?" He asked, turning back to the Chief Petty Officer, who nodded.

"The office next door is free."

"McGee, David. Desk and bunk. Petty Officer Mendez, with me." The man readily got up and followed Gibbs and Tony out of the room, leaving Ziva and McGee to start going through Thorne's desk.

"Is it me, or does this case just keep getting weirder?" McGee asked in a hushed voice when the Petty Officers Drew and Carrol's attention had returned to their monitors.

"What do you mean?" Ziva did not look up from carefully emptying each desk drawer, only to find nothing but office equipment.

"Well, first we find Thorne beheaded and dumped in an old warehouse, then we find out it was actually poison that killed him and now we're looking for some place he might have come across a tiger? Please tell me that's not your idea of normal."

"The first case I ever worked on with NCIS involved finding a mummified hand in a safe holding an ancient treasure map. Compared to that, this seems very normal."

"When you put it that way…" McGee sighed and continued searching Thorne's meticulously organized computer files, trying to ignore the way Ziva was bustling around by his feet, searching the underside of the desk for anything of interest. "Still, I mean, a tiger? Even if you find one, it's not like you can just walk up and pet them."

"Perhaps there was no real tiger, only something with a tiger's hair on it." Ziva suggested, her voice slightly muffled, as her head was currently inside a filing cabinet.

"You're right, that's a good idea! It's like, my aunt used to have a cat and even though she'd keep it away from me, I'd be sneezing like crazy as soon as I got through the door. When we got back from visits my mom had to wash my clothes right away, 'cause they'd always picked up cat hairs from the sofa. So Thorne could have just been somewhere where a tiger was first. But still, where could that be? He hadn't left the ship for a month before it docked here on Sunday."

"I do not think a tiger could be hidden on a ship that is at sea for months. And why would anyone want to take a tiger on an aircraft carrier in the first place? I cannot believe anyone would be that stupid."

"Well, you weren't there when we had to hunt a koala on a submarine," McGee remarked drily.

"Now you are making things up," Ziva accused, and added a curse in Hebrew when one of the many perfectly alphabetized folders sneakily gave her a paper cut.

"I'm not, someone really did try to smuggle a koala on a submarine. But you're right, even on a ship this big you couldn't hide a live tiger. We should check with Zoos between here and DC, see if Thorne met with one of their wild animal keepers or something."

Ziva was about to reply with an assent when McGee rolled his chair slightly to the right, accidentally running over her fingers in the process, and anything she might have said was drowned in an impressive string of Hebrew cursing and an increasingly hysterical stammered apology.

* * *

><p>In the room next door, Gibbs and DiNozzo had taken their seats behind the only desk, facing the dark-haired Petty Officer. He didn't appear nervous, nor deeply distressed by his co-worker's death. If anything, he looked a bit curious, but not overly so. Tony wondered if that was due to composure, or lack of interest.<p>

"So, Petty Officer Mendez, what can you tell us about Petty Officer Thorne?" he began.

"Well, what sort of things do you want to know?"

"Anything you think will help us solve his murder."

"I don't really think I can help with that. He was a quiet sort of guy, never talked much. But he always had his work done on time, and he was very careful to double-check everything, so there usually weren't any mistakes, either, as far as I know. He was a good sailor."

"A little too good, maybe?" Tony chimed in.

"I don't know what you mean." Mendez looked genuinely confused.

"Come on, we know about Thorne. We know he was a tattletale, a goody two-shoes. The kind of guy who goes running to the boss with everything. The kind of guy who has you looking over your shoulder all the time, always trying to make sure there's nothing for him to tell. The kind of guy who drives everyone else completely crazy."

If Tony had been hoping to spark an outburst of murderous rage, he was disappointed. Mendez was shaking his head, not in flat-out denial, but in honest disbelief.

"That's not what he was like at all. Sure, he was pretty anal about everything, but he wasn't vindictive or mean-spirited. He was just trying to do a perfect job. Yeah, he would often notice when one of us made a mistake, but he never went higher up the chain unless he had to. He'd just quietly point it out to us, and we'd correct it and it was no big deal."

"But he did have to go up the chain of command sometimes?"

"Only once that I know of. When we served together a couple of years ago there was a problem with his bunkmate. Ferrel – that was his name - was doing drugs, and not just occasionally. He was getting worse, to the point where you couldn't rely on him at all anymore. Someone had to speak up, and Thorne did. But he did try to reason with him first, tried to get him help. Well, Ferrel was beyond help or reason. He'd have gotten discharged for sure, but he OD'd."

"So what you're saying is that Thorne was universally beloved? No one had any problem with him?" The sarcasm was virtually dripping from Tony's voice.

Mendez, however, appeared sarcasm-resistant. "Well, he was a little annoying sometimes, with the way he had to make sure even the tiniest, useless detail was perfect, but when you're stuck living and working with the same people for months on end, everyone's quirks tend to get annoying. You just learn to tolerate them. So if you're asking if I hated him enough to kill him, the answer is no, not even close."

"Fair enough," Tony acknowledged.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Gibbs resumed a more neutral line of questioning.

"Sunday, at about 1700, at homecoming. We usually have to stay on duty when we reach home port, since that's when a lot of loading and unloading goes on, but we came in a few hours ahead of schedule. We were supposed to come in later that evening, and all deliveries and such had been scheduled for Monday morning. So we were all given leave and went to see our families."

"Do you know where Thorne went?"

"I think he said his parents live in Virginia Beach, and he was going to surprise them. Our parents don't usually bother coming to homecoming, see, 'cause we always have to stay on duty for another couple of days."

"Did he say anything else? Mention any other plans?"

"I don't think so. But like I said, he didn't talk too much."

"Anything else you can tell us? Anything unusual about Thorne?"

"Uh, well, a couple of weeks ago he was kind of twitchy and even more anal than usual. I asked him if anything was wrong and he said it was no big deal. He was back to normal pretty soon, so I didn't think too much about it."

"You have no idea what that was about?"

Mendez shook his head. "Sorry."

As he left, Tony turned and muttered to Gibbs, "I sure hope McGee and Ziva are having more luck."

* * *

><p>McGee and Ziva were, in fact, not having more luck. Two repetitive interviews and one fruitless bunk search later the team therefore gathered in relative frustration to wait for Commander Nelson to become available. Thankfully, the wait was not a long one.<p>

Without preamble the door opened, and a friendly looking, uniformed man in his mid-forties stepped in. He turned confidently to Gibbs and held out his hand. "Special Agent Gibbs? Commander Frank Nelson. I'm the Supply Corps Officer on the Truman."

Gibbs grasped the proffered hand firmly. "Commander."

"I understand you're here to investigate the death of Petty Officer Thorne. How can I help?"

Such straightforward cooperation from higher-ups was, while not unheard of, at the very least an extremely rare thing, and therefore immediately engendered suspicion. Gibbs, however, remained characteristically stoic. "We'll need to see where he worked."

"Didn't you already search his desk?"

"His coworkers said he was in charge of a taking inventory of everything the four of them were responsible for," Tony said. "You can't really take inventory without seeing, oh, the inventory, right?"

The SUPPO could not deny the logic. "I can show you around the storage areas myself, if you'd like. A walk would probably do me some good after sitting in meetings all day. Though if we could combine that with my interview, I'd be grateful, since I do have another meeting coming up."

"We won't take more of your time than necessary, Commander," Gibbs assured.

"All right, then let me give you the tour."

The four of them followed Commander Nelson into the passage. "We're going have to do a bit of walking," he announced. "Petty Officer Thorne was taking inventory of replacement parts that weren't needed on a daily basis, and of course they're not stored in central locations."

"How well did you know him?" Tony asked.

"Barely at all, to be honest. You have to realize what a huge operation this is. We have to keep the entire ship and crew supplied with everything they need, from pencils to engine parts, and we handle just short of 400 million dollars. That takes a lot of people, and even though I try to be approachable I just can't get to know all of them. I've got to trust the division officers and the Supply Department Master Chief to manage all the supply sailors well."

"So how come you knew Thorne at all?"

"He stood out, I guess. His work was always excellent and meticulously detailed. I started noticing that if his name was on a report, that report was absolutely reliable. He never seemed to make any of the oversights or miscalculations that everyone else occasionally did, myself of course included. I have to admit, I was a little curious, so when I finally met him I took notice."

"Of anything in particular?" Gibbs tone was neutral, giving no hint as to which answer he expected.

"Not really. He seemed a bit nervous, but that's nothing unusual." The Commander stopped walking and turned to a door on the right. "This is where Petty Officer Thorne was taking inventory for the past few weeks. It's where we store the spare parts for the planes. We have to be prepared to perform all kinds of repairs, so we have large stock of various replacement parts. They're not actually needed very often, but it's crucial that they are available at a moment's notice when we do, which is why Petty Officer Thorne was assigned to run a careful inventory here."

"McGee, Ziva." Gibbs jerked his head towards the door.

"On it, Boss." McGee let Ziva wrench open the door and then followed her inside to look for anything resembling clues. It might help, he thought, if they knew what they were looking for. He gave a mental sigh as he surveyed the badly lit storage area and, remembering the last time he had searched for clues among piles of crates, hoped he wouldn't come across any more dead animals.

"Anything sensitive there?" Gibbs turned back to Commander Nelson.

"Hardly. Just spare parts, like I said. Why?"

"Well, we're trying to figure out why someone would kidnap Thorne and them chop his head off," Tony supplied brightly.

All of a sudden, the Commander's competent calm seemed to evaporate; his expression turned to shock. "He was murdered?" he asked in disbelief.

"Well, yeah, that's why we're here."

"I thought… I was informed he'd been killed, I just assumed there had been an accident. I thought this was a routine investigation."

"It's not." Gibbs' brusque tone seemed to recall Commander Nelson to the present situation, and the somewhat dazed look left his face.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just, to have one of my men killed right after we reach home port…" he trailed off.

"Do you have any idea why someone might have wanted him dead?"

Commander Nelson quickly shook his head in reply to Tony's question. "No, I don't. He didn't have access to sensitive information or anything of the sort. Whatever it was, it can't have been related to his job."

Tony looked skeptical, but chose not to press the matter.

"Thorne went missing yesterday, but he wasn't reported UA. Why?"

Gibbs question seemed to make the SUPPO uncomfortable. "I decided not to. Petty Officer Thorne was always absolutely reliable, this just wasn't like him."

"So you decided to _not_ report that?" Tony was slightly incredulous.

"I figured there had to be a good reason. I assumed he'd gone to visit his parents, and considering his father had had a stroke recently, I thought there might have been a family emergency. Petty Officer Thorne had a strong sense of responsibility; he wouldn't have just skipped out on duty. I decided to cut him some slack. I realize now that was clearly the wrong decision, but it seemed like the decent thing to do at the time."

"Wait, so when you heard he was missing you tried to find an explanation and went digging through his family medical history instead of just reporting him UA?" Tony's skepticism was back full-force.

"No, of course not," Commander Nelson said quickly. "I knew about his father already. A few weeks ago I got a report from Petty Officer Thorne that had a big miscalculation in it. Everyone else was used to not having to check his work, I guess, so it didn't get noticed before I had to place the order for our next unrep – underway replenishment – when the number just seemed off to me. It was lucky, if I hadn't noticed it we'd have ended up under-stocked. Like I said, he usually didn't make mistakes, so I wanted to talk to him. He said he'd been distracted because his father had just suffered a stroke, but he promised to be more careful in future."

"That why you assigned him this inventory?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't, he was already working on that."

Ziva and McGee chose that moment to exit the storage area. "We could not find anything, Gibbs," she reported. "It appears everything is as it should be." She turned to Commander Nelson. "Are there other areas where Thorne worked?"

"Not recently, as far as I know."

"What about that one?" Tony pointed to the door across from the one his teammates had just exited.

The SUPPO glanced at it quickly. "No, he wouldn't have been there."

"S5," Tony read aloud the beginning of the clearly printed lettering next to the door. "Doesn't that mean it's one of yours?"

"It is a storage area, but all we keep there are the broken plane parts we've replaced. There's no need to take inventory of them."

"Well, maybe Petty Officer Thorne did, anyway. You did say he was meticulous. Can we take a look around?"

"There's really no point. The area's already been emptied, the parts were unloaded yesterday."

He glanced at his watch. "Can we wrap this up on the way back? I really have to get to my meeting soon."

Gibbs nodded and turned to follow the Commander back the way they had come, but not before sending Tony a meaningful look. He, in turn, turned to McGee. "I can't believe we got nothing! There's got to be _something_ that can tell us why Thorne was killed. Are you sure there was nothing in his bunk and locker?"

"No, Tony, we decided it wasn't worth looking." McGee rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course I'm sure."

"Maybe you missed something."

"How could I miss something? It's not like there's a lot of space to hide things!"

"Well, you don't have my Agent Afloat bunk-search superpowers. Come on, we're going to search it again, properly this time." Tony grabbed McGee's arm and started dragging his protesting teammate in the opposite direction.

Both Ziva and the Commander glanced at Gibbs, who simply shrugged in a 'they'll find their way back' kind of way, and continued along the passage.

"What the hell, Tony?" McGee felt he had every right to be annoyed. "You don't seriously think-"

Tony made sure the others were well out of earshot before interrupting. "Nope."

"Then what-"

"This." Tony pointed at the door in front of them. It was the one to the storage area Commander Nelson hadn't wanted them to search.

"…oh."

Tony refrained from commenting any further and pulled the door open. Whatever he had been expecting, he was disappointed. The room was indeed empty, as the SUPPO has told them. "Still," he said, thinking out loud, "There's got to be a reason he didn't want us in here. You take that side of the room, McGee, and I'll search here. There has to be _something_."

"Like what? Bloodstains? You can't actually think the Commander killed Thorne?" Nevertheless, McGee dutifully examined the walls and floor. "I've got some powder here," he called out.

Tony came over and crouched down to take a closer look. "Bag it." As McGee shined his flashlight on the floor, something caught his eye. "Wait, move the light back."

With a pair of tweezers, Tony carefully lifted a thin strand from the floor and held it up against the light. "McGee, does this look like a…?"

"Tiger hair," McGee confirmed.


	5. A Wild Discovery

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Animal lovers, proceed with caution.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four: A Wild Discovery<strong>

Early the next morning, Abby's lab was already vibrating with her favorite music, though it had been turned down to a more moderate volume in consideration of the fact that the scientist wasn't alone. McGee had been granted the use of one of the computers and was by now deeply engrossed in his work. He was, in fact, so engrossed that he failed to notice Abby sneaking up behind him until something cold and slimy made contact with his neck. With something between a yelp and a squeal he jumped from his chair.

"Abby! What the…?"

Grinning, Abby held out a small contraption that seemed to combine a small motor, plastic tubes, a tiny bottle and a wetly glinting blue glob of a rubbery substance, which McGee identified as his assailant. "I finished it!"

"What _is _it?" Apprehension was battling with curiosity on McGee's face.

"A fake tongue. Look!" Abby placed the contraption in front of one of her lollipop stands and turned the motor on. One end of the oblong glob was attached to the rotating part, causing the rest of it to floppily and comically lap at the lolly as it was flipped in circles. "It's going to help me with figuring out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop!"

"Aren't you supposed to be analyzing the tiger hair and the powder we found the ship yesterday? So we can figure out what is has to do with Petty Officer Thorne being poisoned and then beheaded?"

"I did! Well, I did as much as I could. It's up to my baby now, I'm just waiting for a ding…" She trailed off, looking hopefully towards her MassSpec, but the machine was not obliging. "I guess that would have been too-"

Two dings occurred simultaneously, cutting Abby off.

"Gibbs!" she squealed in delight as her favorite team leader emerged from the elevator. "Your timing just keeps getting perfect-er!"

Gibbs smiled indulgently as he handed her a Caff-Pow and followed her to her workstation. "You got something?"

"Yep!" Abby grinned proudly. "This hair," she held up one container with a hair in it, "and this hair," she held up another, "came from the same tiger! And not only that, they both also had traces of" she checked her computer screen, "_Enzol B_ on them."

Gibbs' look advised her that further explanations were necessary. "It's a tanning chemical. You're not looking for a real live tiger, you're looking for something made of tiger fur."

"Isn't that illegal?" McGee questioned.

"Of course it is! Tigers are endangered, after all. It wouldn't be easy to get tiger fur around here, but there's a huge black market for pretty much all tiger parts in Asia, 'cause a lot of people there still believe they have magic powers."

"Good job, Abs." Gibbs leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she held him off.

"Wait, I've got more! I analyzed the powder you found with the hair. You want to try to guess what it is?"

Gibbs' expression indicated that no, he did not.

"You probably wouldn't have guessed anyway. Well, unless you used your super mind-reading powers or something. Believe it or not, it's dried, ground tiger penis!"

"Tiger penis?" McGee sounded more inclined towards the not-believing, and even Gibbs didn't seem to know how to take this information.

"Yup. It's used in traditional Chinese medicine to increase male potency and there's still a high demand for it in lots of Asian countries. There's no real black market for it here, though, probably 'cause it's much simpler to just get the little blue pills. So for someone here to have gotten hold of that stuff and the fur, he probably really has a thing for tigers."

"Good job, Abs." This time, Abby held out her cheek for a peck.

McGee spoke up quickly before Gibbs could turn to leave. "I've got something, too, Boss. I've been going through the copy of Thorne's hard drive I made, and I found a couple of deleted files. I managed to restore them, and, well, look." He motioned to his monitor where two lists of multiple-digit numbers were visible.

"What am I looking at, McGee?"

"It's the tracking numbers of the crates Thorne was taking inventory of. He _did_ take inventory of those broken plane parts, even if it wasn't part of his job, and it looks like there were some inconsistencies. There were more crates than there should have been in that storage area Commander Nelson didn't want us to search. See these three tracking numbers? They're nowhere on the official logs for the replaced parts."

"Three extra crates. Something was hidden there," Gibbs surmised.

"And since the Commander tried to keep us out of there, he probably knew about it. Whatever it was, it wasn't there anymore when Tony and I searched the area, but I just checked the Truman's unloading record and get this: Those crates weren't supposed to be unloaded for another couple of days, but the Commander made it a priority. They've been taken to a small warehouse by the docks, but they're not scheduled to be picked up from there 'til next week. Everything should still be there."

"Go. Take Tony and Ziva." Gibbs instructed.

"Uh, Boss? What are you going to do?"

"Talk to Commander Nelson," Gibbs said with a grim smile.

* * *

><p>Commander Nelson was doing an admirable impression of a perfectly calm man. His breathing was even, his hands were still and his expression reflected very little worry for someone in Interrogation. His posture, however, gave him away. It was rigid, beyond the typical straight bearing of uniformed men, with a tension that revealed the nervousness underlying the firm control.<p>

"You lied, Commander." Gibbs said bluntly. "We know Thorne was in that room."

"If he was then I was wrong, I guess, but I wasn't lying. Petty Officer Thorne wasn't assigned inventory of that particular storage area, there was no reason for him to be there. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong information, but I can only tell you what I know."

"You had those crates moved early. Why?"

"We arrived ahead of schedule on Sunday, so we had to change around the plans for unloading. I had to re-coordinate a couple of things to make it work."

"So you had crates that no one needs picked up first thing on Monday?"

"That's where it fit in the schedule. Like I said, I had to move switch some parts of the schedule around. Is this really that important? Even if Petty Officer Thorne was in that area, what would the crates tell you?"

Gibbs ignored the question. "Your men said unloading was left 'til Monday, like scheduled. That's why they were granted leave."

"There wasn't much unloading going on on Sunday, not enough to justify keeping everyone away from their families after six months at sea, but enough to make a rescheduling necessary. Look, if those crates are really that important, why don't you just go examine them? They're still in the warehouse they were taken to on Monday, they won't be picked up until next Thursday."

Again Gibbs chose to disregard the Commander's comment. "Why did you meet with Thorne three weeks ago?"

"That was the time I told you about, when his report contained a dangerous mistake. I wanted to talk to him, to see what'd gone wrong. He explained that he'd been distracted because his father had just had a stroke, and he promised to be more careful in future."

Gibbs shook his head. "You're lying, Commander."

"Why would I do that?" Commander Nelson exclaimed, agitated. "If you don't believe me, you can check my calendar for that week, it's in there. Or just ask my assistant, he keeps track of all my meetings."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes, practically piercing the Commander with his stare. "Thorne never made that mistake. His co-workers said he was even more careful than usual that week, not less. No, he was working on the replacement parts inventory, he noticed something wrong, and he came to you. You didn't want anyone to know about that, so you made up this cover story for your meeting."

Commander Nelson was shaking his head, but a sudden ringing noise prevented the Commander from verbalizing his denial.

"Gibbs," Gibbs barked into his cellphone in a tone that indicated whoever had dared to break Rule #22 was going to be skinned alive.

* * *

><p>The warehouse by the docks was indeed small, and also very rundown. It actually made the warehouse where Thorne's body had been found look like a modern high-tech facility. The sounds of heavy machinery were emanating from the inside when Tony, Ziva and McGee arrived.<p>

They were met at what looked like it had once been a gate by a heavy man wearing an overall and thigh-high rubber boots. "You can't come in here, it's off limits."

Tony pulled out his badge. "Federal Agents. We need to see a couple of the crates inside."

The man shrugged. "I guess I can let you in, but there're no crates or anything. A water pipe burst Monday, and fixing it's tough 'cause all the piping's so old. It's still half flooded, and all the stuff inside was moved."

"We are looking for several crates unloaded from the USS Truman on Monday," Ziva informed the man. "Can you tell us where they have been taken?"

"All the Navy stuff was picked up and taken to the new warehouse complex up the road, I think. You should try there."

* * *

><p>'Up the road' turned out to be slightly farther than expected, and Tony very much regretted letting Ziva take the wheel. Twelve minutes of sheer terror later, however, all three of them were miraculously still alive, and, after flashing their badges at three separate security checks, were finally standing in front of a small array of crates, trying to match the numbers to the ones on Thorne's lists. McGee noted with satisfaction that this warehouse was very well lit. No unpleasant surprises in the form of decapitated animals could be lurking in shady corners here.<p>

"The number of this crate is only on one of Thorne's lists," Ziva pointed out.

"So's this one. And that one over there," McGee added, pointing them out. "That's all three of them."

Tony held up the pry bar he was carrying for just this purpose. "Who wants to do the honors?"

Ziva grabbed it from his hand and roughly forced it under the lid of the nearest crate. With Tony and McGee crowding around her she pried loose the lid and threw it aside.

McGee yelped and stumbled backwards, pulling out his Sig, while Tony stood apparently frozen to the spot, staring. From inside the crate, glassy eyes stared back.

"It is not alive, McGee," Ziva called out.

Of course it wasn't. McGee felt silly as he re-approached and tucked away his gun. No matter how lifelike that tiger head looked, it was dead, dead and attached to a fur that looked destined to become the tiger version of a bearskin rug.

"If I'd known you were scared of stuffed animals, Probie, I'd have-" Tony cut himself off as he took a closer look at the contents of the crate. "Is that a whole elephant tusk?"

"Looks like it," McGee confirmed, peering in. "And that's a whole monkey and… we should really get this stuff to Abby."

* * *

><p>Tony, Ziva, McGee, Ducky, Palmer and Abby were crowded around the worktable in Abby's lab when Gibbs walked in. Spread out on the table was a collection of the smaller specimens taken from the opened crate, from furs of various shapes and colors over collections of teeth and claws to what appeared to be several stuffed frogs. Abby had apparently already overcome the state of shocked fascination which still seemed to hold the others captive, and was the first to notice his arrival.<p>

"Gibbs! Can you believe this? It's all from endangered animals, and there's two more whole crates! How could anybody _do_ this? They're innocent animals, and someone murdered them just so people could decorate their houses with their body parts. It's horrible!"

Gibbs patted her carefully on the arm. He had to admit that although Abby had told him on the phone what they'd found, the sight was still a little stunning.

"Worth?"

It was Ducky who answered him. "There's no telling what this could fetch on the black market, Jethro. These are fine specimens, extremely well prepared, and, of course, quite rare. The content of these crates is most certainly worth a fortune."

"Enough to kill someone."

"It would appear someone thought so."

"Boss," McGee spoke up, "we found two sets of fingerprints on the inside of the lid. One belongs to Thorne, the other one is," he swallowed.

"Commander Nelson's," Gibbs supplied.

"Yeah. Do you really think the Commander killed Thorne?" McGee wondered. "I mean, Thorne was one of his men."

"He had a motive, McGee," Ziva interjected. "He was smuggling endangered animals. Thorne could have sent him to prison for many years."

"Okay, but if the Commander did it, why did he poison him first and then behead him? And why did he kill a squirrel, too?"

Ziva had no answer to that.

Abby in the meantime had pulled a small bottle of pale yellow liquid from one of the crates. "You might want to look at this."

"What is it?" Tony asked, pulling up a second bottle of the same kind and holding it against the light. Abby snatched it away from him.

"Careful!" She took vial from one of the shelves and poured a bit of the viscous yellow liquid into it, then pulled a canister from her cooler and unscrewed the lid. "Pure alcohol," she explained. "If this stuff is what I think it is," she poured enough alcohol into the vial to match the amount of whatever-it-was, "we'll see pretty soon." Abby closed the vial with a rubber cork and shook it slightly. Then she held it up against the light. The two liquids were still separated, but along the junction a reddish brown color was starting to form.

"What does that mean?" Tony wanted to know.

"It means that this is definitely croton oil. Looks like we know where the killer got his poison."


	6. A New Direction

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Some snarking and somewhat less-than-moral bad guy.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five: A New Direction<strong>

When Gibbs returned to Interrogation his expression spelled bad things for Commander Nelson.

"We found the crates. Including the three extra ones."

"What extra ones?" The question was calm, but there was a sudden strain underlying the voice.

"The crates of illegal animal parts."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We found your fingerprints on the inside." There was an intake of breath from the Commander.

"Thorne found out you were smuggling, so you killed him." Gibbs' words, steely and accusing finally shattered Commander Nelson's calm demeanor.

"I didn't!" he exclaimed, but in anxiety rather than anger.

"We found croton oil in the crates, the same poison that killed Thorne. You had motive, you had the means and if we look hard enough I'm sure we'll find opportunity, too. No jury will have to think twice. Thorne was one of your men, he trusted you, and you murdered him!"

The Commander had gone pale as Gibbs raised his voice, and was now visibly shaking. "I didn't! I would _never_ harm one of my men!" His voice was rising in desperation. "It wasn't supposed to be like this, no one was supposed to get hurt!"

Gibbs was unmoved by the pleading note. "Talk," he instructed coldly.

Nelson had slumped, and placing his head dejectedly in his hands he spoke in the general direction of the table. "I was approached by a man, he said his name was Smith. He said he needed something transported into the country safely and without being noticed. He offered me a lot of money. I thought he had to be smuggling weapons or drugs, I refused. He explained that it wasn't anything like that, it was just furs and things, nothing dangerous. Nothing that could hurt anyone. I thought, well, what's the harm? And he was offering so much money, enough to pay off all my debts." He paused to take a deep breath.

Nelson still hadn't lifted his gaze from the table, which was probably for the best, as the look on Gibbs' face was one to send men running. _What's the harm?_ What was the harm in helping criminals as long as they _promised_ no one would get hurt? What was the harm in dishonoring the Navy as long as the money was good? Gibbs longed to yank the Commander up by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, make him actually listen to his own reasoning, but he stayed still and let Nelson continue.

"It was so easy. All I had to do was arrange for those three crates to be loaded onto the ship when we docked in Mumbai, and then to be logged as malfunctioning plane parts we'd replaced. Those are never checked. All anyone does is log it when another broken part is added, but no one counts the parts that are already there."

"Thorne did," Gibbs interjected.

"Yes, he did. He was just supposed to take inventory of the replacement parts, but he decided to make sure every replacement part checked out of storage corresponded to a broken part in the other storage area. Well, of course it didn't, there were three crates too many. That's when he came to talk to me. I told him I'd look into it, that there was probably just a logging error somewhere, that he shouldn't worry about it. I thought I could keep it all quiet. When my assistant asked what he should note down for my meeting with Thorne, I told him I'd wanted to talk to him about a mistake he made. We were only three weeks from homeport, I thought I'd just get the crates off the ship and be done with everything. But Thorne…"

"Wouldn't give up." Gibbs growled. Thorne had been a good sailor, would probably even have made a good agent. He had tenacity and a sense of duty, and he had been killed for it by someone who had neither.

Nelson sighed. "Thorne wanted all the records to be perfect before unloading began. On Friday he opened one of the crates, and when he saw what was in there of course he came to find me right away. It was obvious that this was smuggling, not something I could just tell him to forget about, so I said I needed his help to catch whoever it was. I told him I suspected the Agent Afloat, so he had to be kept out of the picture. I told him that it was probably a gang of smugglers, and that if we wanted to catch all of them, we couldn't do anything until they tried to get to the crates in port. So we closed the crate back up and tried to make it look like it had never been opened. I had a cell phone number I was supposed to call if there were major problems with the shipment, and that's what I did. I told Smith I'd looked into Thorne's file, that his father was sick, that he could probably be bribed with money to pay for the medical expenses-"

"You called Smith?" Gibbs interrupted. "You told a crime ring that one of your men was a danger to their operation?"

"I had no idea they were going to…" Nelson broke off.

"Kill him?"

"No! All he knew was that there was smuggling going on on the ship. He had no idea I was responsible, or that anyone outside the ship was behind it, he wasn't a real threat. I could have arranged for those crates to be 'lost', made it look like the real smugglers got to them somehow. If Thorne talked, there would have been an investigation, but it wouldn't have gotten very far. It was just easier to bribe him to keep quiet, I figured. I made sure the crates were unloaded and taken to the warehouse Smith named as quickly as possible, I just wanted to get it over with.

"When he didn't show up on Monday, I thought he'd probably taken the money, maybe didn't want to face me because he was feeling guilty. I didn't want to draw any attention to that, so I didn't report him AWOL. Then, when I heard he'd been killed, I just worried that there might be an investigation, that you might find something on the crates, so I deleted that inventory from Thorne's computer. I never thought there would be a murder investigation, because there was no reason to murder Thorne."

Gibbs almost shook his head in disbelief. The degree of self-deception the Commander had gone to to absolve himself of all responsibility was staggering. Had he really managed to convince himself that Thorne, the most conscientious of sailors, could be bribed to ignore crime corruption the Navy he loved so much? Most likely, Gibbs thought, the guilt had simply been pushed aside only to come out full force when he had to face the fact that Thorne really had been murdered.

"I was sure it had to be an accident. And then, when you showed up and said it was murder, I panicked. I knew the broken parts' storage was empty, but nowadays you can find trace evidence everywhere. I remembered that Thorne got some strange powder on him from inside the crate and brushed it off roughly, and I was afraid he'd lost skin cells or tiny hairs or something else you could trace back to him. I wasn't thinking straight, I was so shocked. You have to believe me, I had no idea they were going to kill him! I would never have gone along with that!"

"Who are 'they'?" Gibbs's voice held no sympathy. No matter how much he denied it to himself, Nelson wasn't naïve enough to really have believed that. He had purposefully put one of his men in harm's way purely for the sake of money.

"I don't know!" Nelson was almost pleading. "The only one I met was Smith."

"Describe him."

"He was tall, and kind of thin. It was dark, that's all I could see."

"Not good enough," Gibbs growled.

"That's all I saw! All I know about him is the name he gave me and his cell phone number."

Gibbs shook his head in disgust. Nelson had struck up with crime syndicate without so much as a second though or any moral consideration. He was a disgrace to everything the Navy stood for, and he deserved much worse than the court martial he would be facing.

* * *

><p>"Boss, we have a problem."<p>

Those were not words Gibbs liked to hear immediately on entering the squad room. He turned to McGee, who had spoken. "What kind?"

"Well, when I ran the cell phone number the Commander gave you, the system blocked me and sent out an alert."

"To who?"

McGee opened his mouth to answer, but never got a chance.

"Me." A dry voice said right behind Gibbs. He turned, and found himself face to face with Tobias Fornell. "Well, FBI headquarters, and when they saw where the alert came from they decided to send me. It's been a while, Gibbs. McGee." Fornell directed a nod towards the younger agent.

"Conference Room," was all his friend replied.

Fornell turned to face Gibbs as soon as the elevator doors had slid shut. "Why are you looking into Todd Lombard?"

"Who?"

"The phone number you ran."

"Ah. Murder of a sailor. You?"

"Illegal wildlife trade."

"Looks like we've been doing your job again, then, Tobias." Gibbs allowed himself a smirk.

"What do you mean?"

"Got three crates in the lab full of illegal wildlife."

"You're kidding." Fornell couldn't have looked more stunned if Gibbs had just informed him he was moving in with Diane.

"Nope." Still smirking, Gibbs leaned casually back against the steel wall of the elevator.

"How…?"

"Ah, c'mon, Tobias, you know how these things work"

"'Show me yours I'll show you mine'? Really, Jethro? Whatever happened to simple inter-agency cooperation?" Both men chuckled at that.

"Okay," Fornell conceded, "Here's what I know. We're staking out a wildlife smuggling ring right here in DC. We _know_ who's behind it, but we've got no proof. It's three guys, high society, organizing everything, but they never get their hands dirty. We've caught couriers on occasion, but most of the time they have no idea who they're working for. Even when they do, it's not concrete enough to get us a warrant, let alone a conviction. And when I said high society, I meant _high _society. The case against them has to be completely airtight just to get a prosecutor on board, that's why we can't risk anyone messing with it. Now what've you got?"

"Dead sailor. He found the smuggled crates, informed his Commander. Turns out the Commander was the one doing the smuggling."

"He killed him?"

"He called your guy, Lombard. _He_ killed him."

"That's not possible." Fornell shook his head emphatically. "He's been under twenty-four-hour surveillance."

"Wouldn't be the first time someone got away under your guys' noses."

"Thanks for that reminder," came the caustic reply. "But I still can't let you go poking around. These guys are cautious, if they notice feds sniffing around they'll pack everything up and we'll never get them."

"You try going in under the radar?"

"Undercover? Yeah, we tried that, they didn't go for it. They're too smart, too careful."

"Or you just didn't do it right."

"Don't go getting ideas, Jethro. If the FBI can't do it, it can't be done." Fornell did not like the look of that sparkle in his old friend's eye.

The corners of Gibbs' mouth almost twitched into a smile. "Maybe you just didn't have the right… _assets_."

* * *

><p>"Tony!" Abby squealed when she saw the senior field agent walk through the door to her lab. Or, actually, it was what she meant to squeal. What came out of her mouth sounded significantly more like "Oh-ee!", most likely due to the fact that she had a large white cloth stuffed in her mouth.<p>

"Abs? What's with the… mouth thing?" Tony asked carefully.

Abby quickly spit it into the garbage can. "I cut my tongue. You know how sometimes there are these sneaky bubbles in lollipops that you can't even see but when you get far enough through the candy you kind of open them and they have these really sharp edges? There was one in my lolly and now my tongue is bleeding. Well, actually…" she moved her tongue around her mouth experimentally, "Yeah, it's not that bad anymore. Anyway, that's not important, this is what's important!"

She pulled up a photo of the road in front of Warehouse C, where Thorne's body had been found. "I went through all the pictures you emailed me where you said to look for some kind of tracks, and this is where I found something. Look here," she zoomed in on a piece of the road, "See that clump of mud right there? It's been mostly flattened by a small tire. It didn't notice it the first time because your car and Metro's car flattened most of the mud clumps on that road, but this one was too far outside of either track for those cars to have done it. I can't get very good resolution, but I did manage to measure the width and get an estimate of the profile depth. From that I'd say the track was made by a wheelbarrow."

"The killer brought the body to the warehouse in a _wheelbarrow_?" Tony asked, dumbfounded.

"I know, right? Even if he did it to avoid leaving tire tracks or something it's crazy risky. Anyone could have seen him with the body!"

"Well," Tony mused, trying to make sense of this discovery, "He probably covered up the body with something so it couldn't be seen. And the warehouse complex isn't used much, apart from the guard there's only a couple of homeless guys who stay out of sight most of the time. If the killer dumped the body at night he could be pretty sure he wouldn't be seen, I guess. But he couldn't have come far, nobody would go for a long walk out in the open pushing a wheelbarrow with a dead body in it. So either he lives nearby or he came in a car. And since the whole area is pretty much only warehouses… Abs, can you check the tapes from nearby traffic cams for the night Thorne was dumped?"

Abby grinned at him. "I already did. I marked a couple of routes to the warehouse complex and then looked for cars that passed by there late Monday night. There aren't that many people driving out into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, so once I controlled for the type of car that could fit a full-sized wheelbarrow, I got this." She hit a few keys on her keyboard and four dark, very grainy images showed up on the large screen. They all showed dark streets, with a large, dark vehicle visible from different angles.

Tony stepped closer to the screen, squinting. "That's a van, right? It looks too light to be black, so dark grey? That's good work, Abby."

"No, it's not." Abby shook her head. "Do you have any idea how many dark vans there are in the DC area? When I manage to enhance the pictures enough to tell you the make and model _and_ the license plate so you can put out a BOLO, _then_ it'll be good work," she said forcefully.

Tony held up his hands in defense. "Whatever you say. I'm still going to go check if there's been any suspicious activity in the last couple of days involving dark vans." He headed out of the door and for the stairs, as the elevator lights indicated it was once again being misused as a conference room.

He stopped in the stairwell just outside the squad room, stepped into an unobserved corner and quickly pulled out his cell phone. "You have no new messages," the tinny female voice declared.

"Gibbs is looking for you," a very different female voice announced behind him.

Tony snapped around at Ziva. "You really shouldn't sneak up on people like that," he informed her. "It's not polite."

Ziva glanced at the cell phone in his hand. "Camille has left you no message?"

Tony looked for a second like he wanted to deny that that was what he had been checking for, then simply shook his head and sighed. "No."

"I am sorry," Ziva said, almost gently. "I know she is important to you, even if I do not understand why."

"She isn't, though," Tony tried to explain, "Not really. I mean, not her personally. It's just, well, she bailed before our first date. I'm used to not getting second dates, 'cause that's the kind of guy I am, but I've _never_ been stood up for a first date."

Ziva looked contemplatively at Tony for a moment. "And now you are wondering if you are perhaps losing your good looks or your charm, the things that never used to fail to get you a date."

Tony said nothing, which was as good as an outright admission.

"You are getting older, Tony. What you have always done will not work forever. But," Ziva raked her eyes up and down his form appreciatively, "you are definitely not losing your looks yet." She gave him a suggestive smile.

"Elevator eyes, Ziva," Tony remarked with mock-seriousness. "That's yellow light behavior."

"Then I guess you are lucky today," Ziva smirked. "But if I were you I would not try my luck with Gibbs. He does not like to be kept waiting."

"Did he say what he wants?"

"Not me," Gibbs voice came from right behind them, causing both of them to jump. "Fornell." He turned to Tony. "You've got dinner plans."


	7. An Undercover Assignment

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Crimes against fashion and style.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six: An Undercover Assignment<strong>

Fornell had made himself comfortable in Tony's chair by the time Tony, Ziva and Gibbs arrived back in the squad room.

"Agent DiNozzo," Fornell used the correct Italian pronunciation as he always did purely to irritate Tony.

"Agent Fornell, I heard you need our help again," Tony said flippantly.

"That's funny. I was under the impression you were trying to muscle in on an FBI case. I was just sent here to do damage control. But for some reason your boss seems to think you might actually be able to make yourself useful."

"Come on, just admit that I have unrivaled undercover skills your FBI guys can only dream of. You know it's true. So what's my mission?"

Fornell pressed a button on the large screen's remote control and a picture appeared, showing a gray-haired man with a very distinctive jaw. "Joseph Abernathy. He used to be head of Abernathy Mining Supplies, retired five years ago with a huge personal fortune." He clicked the remote again and the photo was replaced with a one of an elderly gentleman with a very impressive mustache. "William McMurdoch, head of the billion-dollar McMurdoch Industries." Another click brought up a photograph of a third man of approximately the same age wearing gold-rimmed glasses. "Charles Dawson, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

The pictures shrunk and aligned themselves next to each other on the screen. "They call themselves the 'triumvirate.' We know they're the minds behind a well-established wildlife smuggling ring, but we can't get to them because they're just too careful. Usually we'd try to buy from them, but they have a closed circle of regular 'clients' and they only let new people in if they're sponsored by someone already in the inner circle."

"So how are you going to get me in?" Tony asked.

"We got one of the buyers a few months ago, he cut a deal. He'll be your sponsor."

"If he is working with you," Ziva wondered, "why do you not have evidence against them? Could he not testify against the, 'triumvirate'?"

"That's the problem, the triumvirate always makes sure no one has anything on them. All they do is host dinner parties where their 'clients' are invited. The guests _mention_ what they'd be interested in buying, but they never explicitly place orders. They're contacted later by someone calling himself 'Smith' and told where to send money to have their wishes fulfilled."

"Same guy Commander Nelson met with," Gibbs said.

"We know Smith is actually Todd Lombard." Fornell made a picture of a brown-haired young man appear on the screen. "He's the personal assistant to Abernathy and he's the go-between between the triumvirate and almost everyone else involved, making sure none of the triumvirate can ever personally be connected to anything. We have enough proof that we could charge him, and even get him convicted, but the triumvirate would just replace him and keep going.

"And kill him to keep him from talking?" Gibbs suggested.

Fornell shook his head. "That's too messy, not their style. Their MO is to stay completely under the radar. They smuggle by faking logs and inventories, instead of having their stuff snuck over borders in the middle of the night. They forge diplomatic bags rather than bribing customs officials. They wouldn't get involved in any kind of violent crime because there's no way to keep that invisible. Even if a body's never found, someone goes missing and people notice."

"So what would they do if Lombard was going to talk?" McGee asked.

"He wouldn't," Fornell said simply. "For the amount of money Lombard's already being paid, most people would willingly go to jail. If the triumvirate upped the sum, Lombard would probably happily confess to being responsible for everything. He's got no family, no girlfriend, nothing he couldn't give up for a few years. And he wouldn't be in jail for long anyway, considering how much influence those men have. That's why getting to the triumvirate through him won't work. What we really need is someone on the inside to gather information that implicated the triumvirate themselves."

"So why hasn't the FBI sent someone undercover?" Tony asked.

"We did, but he was very politely asked to leave after only twenty minutes. These guys know how to identify their own."

"Then didn't they find out that the buyer who sponsored him is working for you?

"No." Fornell shook his head. "Illroy isn't the brightest," he said with some distaste. "That's why we can't just make him snoop around, why we need one of our own in there. That time it was helpful, though, since Illroy said he'd only met our guy at a party and brought him along at his specific request. The triumvirate just assumed he'd been duped. They didn't make our guy for FBI, either, they just noticed he wasn't high society enough. We sent him to a couple more upscale parties to solidify the image of him as just a rich-guy wannabe trying to worm his way into high society, so they have no reason to be suspicious. Illroy should be able to get you in without problems."

"Let me get this straight." Tony said slowly. "You're sending me undercover into a tightly knit group that always recognizes their own, and the guy vouching for my cover '_isn't the brightest_'?"

Fornell grimaced. "He's all we've got. The upside is that the triumvirate would never consider him a threat. We've minimized Illroy's role as much as possible, all he really has to do is introduce you. We've made sure he knows your alias' profile so he can answer, but the big three don't put much stock in anything Illroy says, so they'll focus on examining you personally to see if you fit their crowd. You'll have to convince them of that on your own, but after all," Fornell gave Tony a grin, "you seem like the right man for the job."

"So what you're saying is, no one would doubt for a second I'm a self-absorbed rich douche?"

"Your words, Agent DiNozzo," Fornell smirked.

Tony became serious again. "What kind of information am I looking for?"

"They have to be taking notes in some way on the 'orders' the guests are placing. If you can get to those or something else tying Abernathy, McMurdoch and Dawson to the smuggling we can get a warrant. That should give us enough proof to safely charge them with illegal wildlife trade."

"That's great for you, but aren't we looking for a murderer? Like the guy who poisoned Petty Officer Thorne and then chopped his head off?"

"None of them killed your Petty Officer. They've been under twenty-four hour FBI surveillance. And they wouldn't order a hit, either. Like I said, it's not their style. But I know you won't believe me, se we'll just say that it's easier to get a warrant this way, and it'll let you search for evidence of murder."

"Okay, just one question."

Fornell looked at him expectantly.

"Who am I supposed to be?"

* * *

><p>"Gordon? <em>Gordon<em>? You have got to be kidding!" Tony, already decked out in full eveningwear, paced up and down Abby's lab, clearly not pleased. "What kind of name is _Gordon_?"

"It's yours," Abby said brightly. "At least it will be for the next few hours. And it's too late now to change the profile."

"I should never have let you choose. _Gordon Talley_, I mean, seriously!"

"I don't know," McGee said with an exaggerated air of thoughtfulness, "At least this way there's no chance you'll forget what you're supposed to be called."

"Who asked your opinion? Don't you have some tech stuff to do, McMotherboard?"

"I'm setting up your wire, Tony, it's not exactly rocket science. Even you could do it." He paused. "Why _aren't_ you doing it yourself?"

"I'm getting into character. A rich, pampered guy like _Gordon Talley_ wouldn't be caught dead doing his menial labor. Anyway, I'm the one who's going to be doing all the hard work tonight. All you have to do is sit here and listen, so I think it's only fair if you do your share now."

"You're going to a dinner party, Tony, I'm not sure that even qualifies as work at all."

"Probie, you have no idea." Tony sounded almost serious, and McGee looked up in surprise.

"You know what's weird?" Abby asked. "The crates with all the animal parts, why were they still in the warehouse? Commander Nelson had them moved there on Monday, and he told Lombard. Why didn't the 'triumvirate' have them picked up, if they knew Thorne knew about those crates? Even with him dead it would have been much safer to hide them somewhere else instead of just leaving them there."

McGee looked up. "They didn't," he said slowly, as if it were just occurring to him. "The crates weren't where the Commander had them delivered. The warehouse where they were supposed to be was flooded, and everything in it had to be moved."

"Well, you found out where the crates had been moved, so wouldn't they have, too?"

"Yeah, but that wasn't the problem," Tony said, realizing where McGee was going. "The problem was with the new warehouse itself."

"Exactly." McGee nodded. "It's the security. There was almost none at the first warehouse, but at the second one the guards almost didn't let _us_ in, even after we showed our IDs. The smugglers didn't leave the crates there on purpose, they just couldn't get to them."

"That means there's a chance they don't know that we took them," Tony realized. He turned to Abby. "Can you check how far along the repairs are in the first warehouse, when the stuff is being moved back there?"

Abby's fingers flew over her keyboard for a few seconds before she answered. "That warehouse is out of commission for at least another week."

"That's great!" McGee said. "That means they don't know yet that we've got the crates. They don't know we're onto them. Well," he paused, "not unless they've got contacts in the new warehouse or managed to bribe one of the guards. But they weren't counting on the new warehouse, so contacts are unlikely. And Fornell said they don't bribe if they don't have to, so there's a good chance they've decided to simply wait a week for the crates to go back to the old warehouse where they can get to them without anyone noticing."

"That'd mean the triumvirate's 'clients' are still waiting for their stuff," Tony said. "Well, that should definitely make the dinner party interesting."

"Speaking of interesting," McGee said, "they might scan you for bugs, so I've added a button to cut off transmission from your wire. I'll put it on the back of your bowtie, so you can just pretend to fix that if you have to hit the switch."

"Ooh, we should totally have a secret code word for that!" Abby exclaimed.

"For what?" McGee was confused.

"For if he has to shut off the signal. You know, he can just say something like, I don't know, 'gold rush' or some other code phrase and we would know when the transmission stops that it's on purpose and that it doesn't mean something's gone wrong."

"How is that supposed to work? It's not like he can just go 'Hey, nice to meet you, oh, and by the way, gold rush,'" McGee argued.

"I like the idea, though," Tony said, attaching the wire under his shirt. "It would have to be something simple, though, that I could slip into a conversation at any point, but that you would recognize right away. I mean, if they do scan me I can't be sure I'll get a chance to warn you, but if I do, why not try. We just need the right word."

"So now we're looking for an inconspicuous word that will really stand out," McGee summarized drily. "That should be easy." He handed Tony the bowtie with the now-attached button.

"It is!" Abby called excitedly. "It's a color!"

"A color?" McGee didn't follow.

"Yeah, like red or orange or green or something. You can use a color in almost any context, but it's still something we would notice if we were listening for it."

Tony nodded. "That could work. It can't be red, though, in case the conversation turns to wine. And it's got to be a color that there's a lot of, so nothing like orange or purple."

"How about blue?" Abby suggested.

"That'll work. Blue it is," Tony agreed.

"What is?" Gibbs had entered the lab.

"Tony's code word," Abby informed him. "If he has to turn of the transmission from his wire he'll talk about something blue so we'll know what's going on."

Gibbs nodded, understanding.

"You ready, DiNozzo?" Fornell had entered after Gibbs.

Tony inserted an earwig into his ear. "I am now."

"Good." Fornell motioned towards the door, and a young, red-haired man stepped in and grinned at all of them. Everyone's eyes immediately fixed in disbelief on his tie, which bore a blindingly garish yellow-and-purple checkered pattern.

Fornell was the only one who seemed resignedly unaffected by this presentation. "Meet Reggie Illroy," he said, addressing Tony, "your new best friend."


	8. A Dinner Party

**Jungle Fever**

_by Calliatra _

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Lots of douchey rich people and dinner party trivia. Also, language.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven: A Dinner Party<strong>

By the time Tony and Reggie Illroy had reached Abernathy's mansion, Tony's patience was already wearing thin.

"You're lucky, you know," Reggie was saying, and honestly, Tony wondered if he had some sort of secret supply of oxygen that let him talk without ever stopping to draw a breath, "that I could get you in on such short notice. There would have been no chance, normally, but McMurdoch had to fly to Argentina suddenly on some business emergency. That would have made us thirteen at the party, so Abernathy was very happy when I said I knew someone who was interested in coming along. Anyway, I hope you know what you're doing. The last guy was just clueless. Good thing I said I'd only met him at a party and brought him along on a whim, I wouldn't have wanted anyone to think I was actually friends with someone like that."

Tony fought the urge to press the balls of his hands into his eye sockets. Reggie had been babbling nonstop ever since they'd left NCIS headquarters. Tony forced himself to keep listening, in the hope of catching small pieces of relevant information among the vapid, inane chatter. Still, if this kept up much longer, Tony feared he might be forced to strangle Reggie with that unbelievably hideous tie of his.

"Especially Melissa Emmons," Reggie continued, oblivious to his companion's state of mind. "You'll meet her tonight and you'll have to agree with me that she's the most beautiful woman who ever lived. I'm going to marry her someday. I mean, okay, she's turned down all my proposals so far, but- oh, thank you, Daniel." Reggie had apparently not noticed his limousine coming to a halt, and only interrupted his monologue when his driver opened the door for him.

Tony followed Reggie up the marble steps to the enormous front entrance of Abernathy's estate. Before they could ring the bell, the door was pulled open by a butler. "Please step in, gentlemen. May I take your coats?"

Having surrendered the requested items, Tony and Reggie followed the butler through the main entrance hall and into the parlor where it seemed all the other guests were already assembled. Immediately, a waiter offered them a tray of Champagne. From the other side of the room, their host came over to meet them.

He held out his hand to Reggie and shook it vigorously. "Illroy, it's good to see you again. And you must be Talley," he added, turning to Tony. "I'm Joseph Abernathy." He gave Tony's hand a firm squeeze. "Let me introduce you to the other guests."

Tony had no choice but to follow him. "Illroy tells me you're in the technology sector," Abernathy said very casually as he guided him across the room.

The line of questioning was expected, and Tony gave the answer he had carefully worked out with Abby. "It's not so much me as my grandfather. He designed some things for the Krolmeister company back in his day and held the patent. Some sort of valve, I think, but don't ask me what kind exactly, science was never really for me. Apparently, though, they still haven't come up with something better, so they keep using his design. All I do is collect the royalty checks." Tony laughed carelessly.

"In that case, what do you do with your time?" Abernathy asked with only a hint of inquisitiveness.

"Oh, nothing useful," Tony replied lightly. "I travel a lot, I golf, and I generally do my best to enjoy life."

"Yet you don't usually attend social functions here in DC?" There was an undertone of shrewdness in Abernathy's question, but Tony was prepared.

"I admit, I usually avoid them. In this city there are far too many people who are convinced they know what is best for all of us, listening to them is not my idea of a good time. I do go out sometimes when I get bored, but one or two parties are usually enough to convince me that I'm better off on my own."

"Perhaps we crossed paths on one of the few occasions you ventured out into society?" Abernathy enquired. "Your face seems familiar to me somehow."

That, Tony did not like. In his mind, he ran through all the cases his team had worked recently. Had any of them been reported on? Had there been a picture of him in the news somewhere? He came up with a handful of cases that had drawn a bit of public attention, but in each case NCIS had only been mentioned under the blanket term of "federal agents," and in none of them had his face been featured. He shrugged it off with a cheerful smile. "It's not the first time I've heard that. I guess I have that kind of face."

Abernathy did not reply as they had reached the group of people he had been steering him towards. "Talley, meet Lady Evelyn Crowley, Mrs. Gloria Pearce and Miss Melissa Emmons," he introduced. "Ladies, this is Gordon Talley, a friend of Illroy's."

Lady Crowley, a woman of at least seventy years whose white hair had a distinct blue-ish tinge, held out her hand limply, and without missing a beat Tony bent forward to kiss it. He repeated the gesture on Mrs. Pearce and Miss Emmons, causing the latter to blush and giggle slightly. Tony smiled with what he knew was almost irresistible charm, and relaxed slightly. He was in his element.

* * *

><p>In Abby's lab, after the first excitement, Abby, McGee and Ziva had gotten bored of listening to Tony making inane small talk rather quickly. They had put the transmission from his wire on loudspeaker so they could do other things while still listening.<p>

"I can't believe the cafeteria is out of cherry flavored tootsie pops," Abby complained. She had spent the last half hour tinkering with her lollipop-licking-machine while waiting for her computer to enhance the traffic cam photos enough to make them useful.

"Why don't you just use grape or strawberry or something?" McGee asked, honestly curious.

"I can't just use a different flavor," she explained, slightly exasperated, "I have to control for any difference the different flavors might make!"

McGee decided nodding was probably the safest response.

"Hey," she asked, suddenly switching gears completely, "is it true that Tony's pining after a girl?"

"Tony, pining?" McGee laughed. "That'll be the day."

"But isn't he, like, calling her all the time even though she never calls back?" Abby pressed on.

"Oh, come on. Can you see Tony actually bothered just because a random girl stood him up?"

"You do not give him enough credit, McGee," Ziva said. "I do not think he is pining, but I also do not think he is taking it as lightly as you assume."

"But," McGee argued helplessly, "it's _Tony_! He's never cared that much about his dates."

"People can change," Ziva said, "Perhaps Tony is changing."

He didn't know what to make of that, so he said nothing. A beeping noise from the back room called Abby to the computer in her office, leaving the two of them to listen to Tony complimenting Mrs. Pearce on her dress.

McGee leaned back in his chair and prepared to listen to Tony weave his charm around every woman in the room. He wished he had something to work on. Briefly, he'd considered outlining some plot ideas for the new book his publisher kept pressuring him to write. But he had a tendency to ignore the real world once the ideas started coming, and couldn't let himself get completely distracted from the dinner party, no matter how boring it might be. Sighing, he settled back and reviewed the facts of the case one more time.

"What is on your mind, McGee?" Ziva's voice interrupted his thoughts a few minutes later.

"Ah, you know, the case. Thorne."

"What about him?"

"Well, he was a good sailor, he loved his job and was careful about doing his work right. He didn't deserve to die."

"It is not fair," Ziva agreed. "It is never fair when good people are killed simply because they are in the way of criminals."

"I know, but this time… Thorne could have left the matter alone after he reported the problem with the inventory. It wasn't officially part of his job, and the Commander even told him not to worry about it. But Thorne wanted to be thorough, to make sure for himself that there was nothing wrong. He was murdered because he was trying to do the right thing."

"We will catch the person who killed him," Ziva said firmly. "That is what Thorne deserves and it is all we can do for him now." She gave McGee a smile. "He is lucky to have someone who really cares on his case."

* * *

><p>In Abernathy's mansion, dinner had just been announced. Abernathy gallantly offered his arm to Lady Crowley and escorted her into the dining room. Mentally shaking his head, Tony watched as the other men followed suit, with Melissa Emmons looking less than pleased to have ended up on Reggie's arm.<p>

Tony offered his arm to Helen Fulton, the young wife of one of the other guests, and led her to the table, pulling out the chair to his right for her. To his left sat Lady Crowley, with Abernathy on her other side. Several waiters began filling up the guests' glasses and Tony turned to engage Mrs. Fulton in conversation, as was expected of him. "Are you often a guest of Mr. Abernathy's?"

Mrs. Fulton laughed lightly. "Oh, you could say that Alan and I are regulars. But it's your first time, isn't it, Mr. Talley?"

"Please," Tony said, bringing out his most dazzling smile for what seemed like the millionth time, "call me Gordon."

"Helen." She returned the smile.

"You're right," he said, "it's my first time. Of course, if I had known how lovely the company would be I would have asked Reggie to introduce me into the party much sooner. Though of course we only just realized we had certain, ah,_ interests_ in common." He winked at her.

Before Helen could reply, a waiter came up behind them. "Caviar, ma'am?"

"No, thank you," she declined.

The waiter moved on to Tony, holding out a tray that contained one plate of small, elegant slices of bread and a bowl full of caviar with a delicate silver spoon next to it. Clearly he was supposed to help himself to caviar on a piece of bread. Tony stared for a second, the faced the waiter. "Excuse me," he said firmly, "I think you brought the wrong spoon."

"Sir?" the waiter asked, indicating polite confusion.

"The spoon," Tony repeated, "It's silver."

The waiter glanced at the tray and then hurried off after an almost groveling apology. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony caught Helen looking at him appraisingly.

* * *

><p>"What was that all about?" McGee asked, befuddled. Ziva and Abby shrugged, just as clueless as he was.<p>

"I believe I can provide an explanation." All three of them turned, startled, having missed Ducky's entrance into Abby's lab. "In polite society, caviar is only ever served with a mother-of-pearl spoon."

"Uh, why?" McGee wanted to know.

"To preserve the taste," Ducky explained. "Metal oxidizes the eggs, lending them a rather unpleasant bite. No waiter accustomed to serving caviar would ever make that mistake. No, I believe this was intended as a test for Anthony."

"They're making sure Tony's high society enough for them?" Abby asked.

"It would appear so. It is lucky for him that he is familiar with all the rules of etiquette."

* * *

><p>They were testing him, Tony had quickly realized. Attempting to weed out the unworthy by trying to get him to commit a <em>faux pas<em>. Well, they weren't counting on his father. Not that he would ever have dreamed that anything his father taught him might be useful for his job, but here he was, semi-consciously employing all of his father's tricks.

Every faked laugh, every carefully laid-out compliment, every jovial remark, it was all taken from his father's playbook. So much so, in fact, that the words sounded almost wrong in Tony's voice, as if they were designed uniquely for his father's slightly deeper, more gravelly one. It was giving Tony a headache. It was working wonders, however; everyone he had spoken to so far seemed to have taken a liking to him. Not that Tony was surprised. No one could escape the DiNozzo charm.

"Would you be so kind as to pass the bread around the table?" Lady Crowley's request startled Tony and made him realize he had been silent for too long. Though, as everyone was busy eating their soup, it might not be construed as rudeness.

"Of course", he said quickly. Picking up the breadbasket from the table, he recognized the request for what it was just in time to seamlessly offer the bread to Mrs. Fulton. "Would you like some bread, Helen?" He had to be more careful, he couldn't be caught off guard like that again.

* * *

><p>In the Lab, McGee looked to Ducky for an explanation. Ducky seemed to be enjoying listening to Tony fend off the "etiquette-attacks," as Abby had named them.<p>

"Dishes are always passed around the table counter-clockwise," the doctor explained patiently. "It would appear the lady who asked that Anthony pass around the bread sits to his left."

Abby shook her head. "That's just silly."

"I believe that is the point. They are making Anthony prove he knows the rules of etiquette that most people have long dispensed with as useless. It is their way of vetting him." He paused an instant. "Oh dear, I completely forgot why I came here in the first place. Mr. Palmer finished the autopsy on the squirrel. It appears it died exactly the same way Petty Officer Thorne did."

"The killer poisoned it with croton oil and cut off its head after it was it was dead?" McGee asked.

"That is what the evidence suggests." Ducky turned to Abby. "But just to be sure, I would like you to analyze the stomach contents."

Abby nodded and took the small jar from the M.E. "I will. But that's horrible! Why would he do that?"

"Maybe he was testing his method of killing?" McGee suggested.

"Maybe, I guess. It really gives me the chills, though." Abby shuddered.

* * *

><p>By the end of the meal, Tony way exhausted. Making sure to pay careful attention to every word anyone said to him and checking it for any possible trap had left him with a splitting headache. At times it had been obvious, such as when Helen had whispered a quiet "Excuse me" to him and risen to leave the table, obviously checking to make sure he knew to get up without being able to take his cues from anyone else. Other times, however, he had to have his wits about him, such as when he was asked by Abernathy to pass the salt. Not even his father's company really observed the rule of always passing the salt and pepper together, regardless of which was requested, anymore.<p>

Tony was therefore very relieved when Lady Crowley rose and withdrew with the other women into the drawing room, leaving the men to gather at Abernathy's end of the table to have manly conversations and smoke. He caught Melissa rolling her eyes slightly on the way out and was glad to see he wasn't the only one who thought this went so far beyond normal etiquette that it was closer to Victorian role playing. All they were missing was the costumes.

As Abernathy engaged most of them in a discussion about the recent change in chefs at very upscale restaurant, Alan Fulton drew closer to Dawson.

"Is there any news about our, ah, _foreign relations_?" he asked, quietly. "My wife is rather worried and would like reassurance. She seems to think that the recent lack of news means bad news."

"Well, I'll be sure to talk to her later, but there really is no reason for her to worry. There are no crises that I'm aware of, just the usual difficulties. We know where all our allies stand and our enemies haven't made a move in a while. The current weather conditions may be making it a little more complicated to access some of our bases, but everything is very secure. There really is no cause for concern."

* * *

><p>"I understand now what Fornell meant," Ziva said to McGee. They were still in Abby's lab, though Ducky had gone back to Autopsy. Abby's computer had in the meantime finished processing the traffic cam pictures of the dark van, and the scientist herself was now busy deciphering the license plate and running it through the database in all possible variations. That left the two of them listening to the transmission from Tony's wire.<p>

"Yeah," McGee agreed. "We know they're talking about smuggling endangered animals, but to anyone else it just sounds like a vague kind of conversation about foreign relations. We're definitely going to need more than this to get a warrant."

"Well, I am sure Tony will manage to get it for us," Ziva said with certainty.

* * *

><p>Once the smokers among the men had finished their cigarettes, they all joined the women in the drawing room. Tony chatted amiable with shifting groups of people while surreptitiously keeping his attention on Abernathy and Dawson. Alone or in pairs, the guests seemed to be taking turns idling up to where the two men stood by the window and engaging them in quiet conversation. Lombard stood slightly back from the group and was furtively working on his cell phone, a very high-end device that was capable of pretty much everything short of teleportation.<p>

That had to be where the 'orders' were recorded, Tony thought. Considering Lombard was the one in charge of dealing with both clients and couriers, it was possible there was a lot more information on the whole operation on that phone. Tony wished he could get to it, but so far Lombard and his phone were inseparable.

He excused himself, and headed to the bathroom to give McGee a quick update.

"Come in, ground control. Do you read me?" Tony whispered into his collar.

"We can hear you just fine, Tony," McGee's slightly exasperated voice sounded in his ear. "What's going on?"

"I've successfully infiltrated their secret society and mastered all the sacred rituals. I believe now they will finally let me-"

"Tony." There was no mistaking the exasperation in McGee's voice now. "It's been a long day."

"Well, what do you think it's been like for me? All you had to do was listen, I had to actually live it. But okay, here's what's going on. I'm pretty sure the guests are placing their orders with Abernathy and Dawson now, but I can't get close enough to listen in. So the only chance I'll get is when I go to give them my order. I'll make sure I'll go at the same time as someone else, you pay close attention. I'm not sure I'll be able to get much more than that, Fornell really wasn't kidding when he said these guys were careful. So we've got to make this work."

"All right, got it. Good luck in there, Tony."

"Catch ya later, Probie-gator. Over and out."

Just as Tony returned to the drawing room, he saw his chance with the two-thirds of the triumvirate when Mr. and Mrs. Fulton graciously moved away from the group by the window. He made his way over at the same time as Lady Crowley did.

"Abernathy," the lady said fondly, "I have been meaning to tell you how much I always look forward to your dinner parties. I very much regret not having been able to attend your last one, but the hospital staff was very insistent I shouldn't leave."

"You have made a remarkable recovery, Evelyn," Abernathy replied.

"Well, it was only the flu." Lady Crowley dismissed carelessly. "I wouldn't have gone to the hospital at all, but my doctor insisted that at my age it was a precaution I ought to take. I'm afraid I must have missed out on one of your absolutely delicious meals, however. I always like an excuse to eat something besides what my doctor has deemed acceptable. He really has no taste or sense of cuisine."

"Not to worry, Evelyn," Abernathy said. "I know how much you look forward to what is served at our little dinners. I have already informed the cook that I will be inviting you over for a quiet dinner some time in the near future, and that you are to receive exactly what you would have had, had the hospital not gotten in the way."

Tony's head was spinning slightly from trying to keep up with the double-speak, but it sounded like Lady Crowley hadn't been able to pick up whatever she had ordered from the triumvirate the last time yet. That was definitely interesting.

"Oh, I am delighted to hear that," Lady Crowley said. "There seems to be such a general decline in taste everywhere nowadays. Your house in one of the few places I know I can rely on to provide the quality I have come to expect over the years."

"Abernathy is very good at providing a quality that has gone out of fashion everywhere else," Dawson agreed. "It has gotten so far that these days such quality is actually frowned upon, I'm afraid."

"I cannot help if I am somewhat old-fashioned, I believe in things of true value," Lady Crowley said emphatically, "as I know you do, too."

She turned suddenly to Tony. "What about you, Mr. Talley? You are not old enough to have been raised with an appreciation for such things. You are part of a generation that blindly follows every new vogue, regardless of its actual worth."

Tony conjured up his most winning smile. "What can I say? I've had the experience that what's fashionable isn't usually very fulfilling. I've discovered that the things most worth having are usually the ones that these days everyone agrees you shouldn't have. Personally, I think that's only the rationale of the people who can't afford what they really want, trying to talk themselves out of wanting it."

"Very well said, Mr. Talley," Lady Crowley approved.

Abernathy, however, was giving Tony an odd look. "Would you excuse me for a moment, please?" he asked, and motioned for Lombard to follow him as he stepped out of the room. Lady Crowley looked very surprised and Dawson didn't seem to know what was going on, either. The conversation stalled with embarrassment, and Tony took the chance to slip away to where Reggie was standing with Melissa Emmons and join their rather one-sided conversation.

When another guests approached Dawson and claimed his attention, Tony waited only long enough for Reggie's ramblings to make Melissa's eyes glaze over before slipping out the door after Abernathy and Lombard.

The hallway was empty, but he could hear voices coming from a door up ahead, which was cracked open.

* * *

><p>Alone in the lab, McGee suddenly sat up straighter. He'd been surprised when the 'ordering' conversation was suddenly interrupted, but he wasn't in any position to really judge what was happening, so he relied on Tony to figure out the situation. Tony had joined a different conversation, presumably waiting to get a second chance with the triumvirate, but now the noise of party chatter had vanished, and at the same time the static had increased. Tony must have left the room. McGee wondered what he was up to.<p>

* * *

><p>"Tony? Everything all right?" McGee's voice came through the earwig, distorted by static.<p>

"Yeah. I just can't talk right now," Tony whispered in direction of his wire. Coughing twice had been the agreed-upon signal for 'yes,' but he couldn't risk Abernathy and Lombard hearing. Slowly he crept close enough to the door to just barely make out the lowered voices.

"Are you sure you've never seen him before?" Abernathy was asking, almost angrily. "You go everywhere with me!"

"I'm sure I've never met him," Lombard said, calmly.

"I suppose you're right." It sounded like Abernathy had deflated somewhat. "I don't think I have, either. But his face is still familiar, somehow."

There was a sound of steps moving back and forth. Apparently Abernathy was pacing the room. "I've got it," he suddenly said. "Anthony DiNozzo!"

Blood rushed in Tony's ears. Lombard's confused "But he's over sixty!" barely even registered.

This was a problem. What should he do? Return to the party? He didn't know what they were going to do to him, but they whatever it was, they couldn't do it in front of witnesses. If they were planning to do anything at all, that was. It wasn't as if he had managed to gather any useful information. Well, except…

"Lombard's phone," he whispered quickly to McGee. "It's all on Lombard's phone."

Then he slowly crept back towards the drawing groom door, trying not to make a sound.

"What is?" McGee's crackly voice asked in his ear, but Tony was focusing on Lombard and Abernathy.

From a distance, he heard Lombard speak. "DiNozzo has a son, he's…" he paused as if reading new information, which he probably was. "Damn it, he's a federal agent!" There were footsteps, and then the door was thrown violently open.

Lombard hurried out. He froze only for a millisecond when he saw Tony, then he got a dangerous look in his eye.

"Shit, he blew my cover!" Tony managed to hiss at the hidden microphone before the whole world went black.

* * *

><p>In Abby's lab, McGee rolled his eyes at Tony. 'It's the blue makeover' – really? He could have just said 'blue,' since there was obviously no one listening. But of course this was Tony, a little thing like being undercover wouldn't faze his sense of humor.<p>

McGee wondered what exactly had been going on. Clearly Tony had been alone for a while, since he had been able to talk directly to McGee. Had the triumvirate grown suspicious and decided to scan Tony for bugs before letting him in on the wildlife ordering? Was something else happening? And what was with Lombard's phone? McGee wished he knew, but in the end, he trusted Tony. He had used the code word to let him know that he was going to cut the signal for a while; Tony wouldn't have done that without a good reason. Maybe he'd have a chance to explain when he got back online. For now, all McGee could do was sit back and wait.


	9. A Frantic Search

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Cruelty to animals. To a lesser extent, cruelty to Tony.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight: A Frantic Search<strong>

Alone in cold blackness, Tony groaned as the memories came back to him. Lombard had gotten him, must have knocked him out, judging by the way his head felt. And now he was here, tied up and freezing in what he supposed was some sort of basement or dungeon. To his right, high up and out of reach, he could just make out the pale outline of a window. Through it, he could see a small piece of the navy blue sky. It was still night then. Or maybe he had been out longer than he thought, and it was night _again_? But no, that wasn't possible. McGee knew he was in trouble, he would have sent help right away. Lombard must have moved him to… wherever the hell he was before it arrived, but it was only a matter of time before the team found him. He had faith in them. He had faith in Gibbs. Still, he couldn't help but notice that he was lying tied up in the exact same position Thorne had been in when he was killed.

* * *

><p>Gibbs paced up and down Autopsy. He was in a very irritable mood, and Palmer had already wisely fled the scene, leaving Ducky and Fornell behind to deal with him.<p>

"Really, Jethro," Ducky admonished, "I know you're worried about Anthony, but you have to have faith in him. If he feels it is necessary to stay out of contact, I'm sure there's an important reason for it."

"DiNozzo's a good agent," Fornell agreed. "He can hold his own. For all we know the triumvirate might have a bug-proof room to discuss the details of the orders."

But Gibbs shook his head. "No, it's been an hour. That's too long." With that, he strode out, barely giving the sliding doors time to open, Fornell close on his heels.

"You think something went wrong after he cut the feed?" Fornell panted, trying to keep up as Gibbs took the stairs, not willing to wait for the elevator.

"Or maybe before."

"Your gut telling you that? He did say he was going to cut the signal on purpose."

They had reached Abby's lab, and Gibbs stormed through the door without answering.

"McGee!" he bellowed.

"Yes, Boss?" Gibbs' tone had McGee on alert instantly.

"What did Tony say?"

McGee was flustered. "Uh, nothing, Boss. He hasn't turned the wire back on yet."

"_Before_ he cut it!"

"He said the code word, 'blue'."

Gibbs glared. "What _exactly_?"

"Uh, well, he said, 'It's the blue makeover.'"

"'The blue _makeover?_'"

"Yeah, he was kidding around. He'd been doing it all evening. Here, I can play it back for you." McGee fumbled with a few buttons until Tony's voice came from the loudspeakers, barely recognizable over the static.

"_..It…he…blue…mike…over!_" it crackled.

Fornell looked at the loudspeaker with unease. Something wasn't right. Gibbs, however, stared at his youngest agent in horror. "McGee!" he yelled. "That's not the code word! He's saying '_Shit, he blew my cover_'!"

McGee paled, then pressed a button and spoke hastily into his headset. "Tony? Tony, can you hear me? Tony!" There was nothing.

"Boss, I'm so sorry, I should have realized–"

Gibbs couldn't spare the time to be angry at McGee, or listen to his apology. He turned to confront Fornell. "I don't give a damn about your warrant, I'm bringing them in!"

Fornell didn't blink. "I'm coming with you."#

* * *

><p>"NCIS!" Gibbs shouted at the same time as Fornell yelled "FBI!" Guns raised, they burst through the door of Abernathy's dining room, with Ziva right behind them.<p>

The table had been cleared, and the guests had all gone home. The only ones left were Abernathy, Dawson, and Lombard, sitting together at the head of the table and obviously startled out of a deep conversation by the federal agents so rudely storming into the room.

Abernathy was the first to get over the shock. He rose to confront the intruders into his home. "What is the meaning of this?"

Ziva pulled out handcuffs and began to fasten them on his wrists, but he backed away. "What do you think you're doing?" He hissed.

"Joseph Abernathy, you're under arrest for illegal wildlife trade," Fornell said calmly, his weapon trained on the man.

"That's ridiculous!" He tried to shake off Ziva's grasp. "Keep those things away from me!"

Immediately, he found himself pinned against the dining table with his arms wrenched behind him. "Give me a reason!" she hissed in his ear. Abernathy tensed for a second, then seemed to come to his senses and slumped in defeat, letting her put the handcuffs on him without any further resistance.

At the table, Dawson and Lombard seemed to be shaking off their stunned stupor. Lombard slowly raised his hands when he saw Gibbs' gun still pointed at them, but Dawson stood, trying to appear unintimidated. "Now wait just one moment," he said. "You can't just do that. We have rights!"

"You have the right to remain silent," Fornell spoke by rote, laying handcuffs on him as Ziva did the same to Lombard. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

Dawson shook himself indignantly. "I _know_ my rights! You will be hearing from my lawyer!"

"You can make the call from headquarters," Fornell told him, and roughly pushed him towards the door.

"We've done nothing wrong," Abernathy protested as Gibbs grabbed his arm. "Whatever you're looking for, you've won't find it."

In one swift movement, Gibbs shoved him against the wall. "What did you do with my agent?" he growled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Abernathy replied, only slightly shaken. "What agent?"

"_Talley_. He was here. What did you do to him?"

Something indefinable flashed across Abernathy's face before he managed to resume his mask of calmness. "Nothing. He left, quite abruptly and without making his excuses. I thought it rather rude. So he was one of your men? I suppose that explains that. But why are you asking _me _where _your_ man is? Have you misplaced him? I have to say, with the chaos that is today's police force, I wouldn't be surprised."

Gibbs' face was livid and his muscles flexed dangerously. Fornell came up next to him, tugging Dawson by the elbow, and laid a hand on Gibbs' arm. "Jethro," he whispered warningly.

Gibbs yanked Abernathy away from the wall with rather more force than was necessary and propelled him out into the hallway.

Just as they reached the front door, a swarm of FBI cars drew up. A young agent jumped out of the first car and rushed up to Fornell, handing him a piece of paper.

"Oh yeah," Fornell said casually to Abernathy, holding up the paper, "we have a warrant to search your house."

* * *

><p>At one of the computers in Abby's lab, McGee was desperately trying to find a way to trace Tony's location.<p>

"I can't believe this," he said. "Tony's missing, he could be dead and it's all my fault!"

"Don't say that," Abby cried. "Tony's not dead, he can't be! I mean, he's Tony, he can protect himself!" She threw herself into McGee's arms for a hug. "And it's not your fault, Timmy. The static was really bad, I would have thought Tony was saying 'blue,' too."

She suddenly straightened up before he could answer. "This isn't helping! McGee, we have to find Tony!"

"I'm trying! But I can't locate the wire when it's not transmitting," McGee said, miserably. "And it's not. I checked the last position, but that was in the mansion, so that's no help."

"The traffic cams aren't any help, either. There are just too many cars that area, anyone could have stuffed Tony in the trunk and driven to who knows where. But we have to do _something!_" Abby practically wailed.

* * *

><p>In Interrogation, it was taking all of Gibbs' self-restraint not to take a swing at the smug lawyer who had showed up instantaneously to defend Abernathy, despite the fact that it was well outside work hours.<p>

"My agent was in your _client's_ house when he disappeared," he growled. "And you're telling me that he knows nothing about that?"

"As I have already told you," the lawyer answered smoothly, "my client was not aware the man introduced to him as Gordon Talley was a federal agent. He was also under the impression that Mr. Talley left without notice once the guests had all assembled in the drawing room, and merely thought him rude."

Gibbs fought the urge to slam his fist on the table in frustration. He really, _really_ hated lawyers.

* * *

><p>"He just <em>left?<em>" Fornell asked Dawson in the next room.

"My client saw Mr. Talley slipping out the door," Dawson's lawyer answered. "When he didn't return my client assumed he had decided to leave."

"Without his coat?"

"Perhaps he forgot it in his haste?" the lawyer suggested coolly.

* * *

><p>"Tell me what you have done with my partner!" Ziva hissed at Lombard in the third interrogation room.<p>

"I didn't do anything to Talley," he replied. "You can keep asking me that all night, my answer won't change."

Ziva clenched her fists and breathed deeply, telling herself that if she snapped his neck right now, he couldn't tell her where Tony was.

* * *

><p>"The phone!" McGee exclaimed suddenly. "Lombard's phone! Abby, where is it?"<p>

"Here," she handed it to him. "It was just brought up. Why?"

"Tony said everything was on Lombard's phone. Maybe there's a clue to where they took him!" He attached it to one of the computers, and winced when he saw the screen. "This is really heavy encryption, it's going to take me a while to crack it."

"Tony might not have a while, McGee! Move over, I'll help you. We've got to find him!"

* * *

><p>Tony had no idea how much time had passed when he heard a metallic squeak coming from somewhere in the depths of the room. The window remained only slightly brighter than the total darkness around him, so at least he knew it was still night. The squeak was followed by footsteps obviously descending stairs. There was a click, and suddenly there was light, a single bulb hanging from a bunch of wires right above Tony, and while it was a weak bulb, the light was still too bright for his eyes, forcing them shut. When he opened them again he saw the dark silhouette of a man looming over him. He was broad-shouldered, but not particularly tall, and he seemed to have shaggy hair. Unless that part was due to Tony's vision still being fuzzy. He blinked several times, trying to clear it.<p>

"You're awake." The voice was rough, but somehow still kind of high. It gave Tony chills. "I was wondering when you'd open your eyes. I like to see their eyes, you know. It's fascinating to see the life leave them." He bent down and Tony flinched involuntarily. So this was the killer, and he had come to finish him off.

The man laughed, an unnatural giggle that made the hairs on Tony's neck stand on end. "Don't worry, it's not your time yet. You're going to be here for a bit longer."

Tony said nothing.

"Todd won't like it, of course," the man said musing. "He said to make a quick job of it. Nothing fancy, just a few drops of this," he held up a bottle identical to the one they had found in the boxes of smuggled wildlife. For a deadly poison, Tony thought blearily, the croton oil looked oddly innocuous.

"I shouldn't make a mess, he said," his captor continued. "No blood, no kidnapping, nothing that could leave evidence. But where's the fun in that? What's the point in slipping someone poison if you don't even get to see them die?"

Now that his eyes had adjusted, Tony could make out the face looming above him. His captor had large blue eyes, a mouth that seemed to be stuck in a constant pout and a round, pink face. The only thing marring his eerily boyish appearance was the scraggly blond beard unevenly covering his chin, and the look of deranged fascination in his eyes. Tony suppressed a shudder. Leave it to the insane rich guys to hire a psycho killer instead of a straightforward hit man.

"Besides, Todd doesn't know how good I've gotten. I've had a lot of time to practice, you see. I know exactly what's going to happen to you. But I want you to know it, too, it's more interesting that way. So let me show you." He smiled in a way that chilled Tony more than the icy floor possibly could.

Suddenly the man stepped outside of Tony's field of vision, and Tony heard some odd scuffling noises. When his captor stepped back into Tony's view, he was carrying a clear plastic box about the size of normal moving box. He placed it next to Tony, and through the side, he could see there was a squirrel inside.

"They're actually very dumb, you know," the man said. "They'll trust you if you just give them food often enough, they never wonder why you're feeding them. And then they're easy to catch. Look, it even trusts me now." He held his hand into the box, and the squirrel showed no sign of fear. Withdrawing his hand, he carefully opened the small glass bottle. Then, with extreme care to not spill any onto his fingers, he dabbed a few drops of the croton oil on a small piece of bread he pulled from his pocket.

He held the bread out to the squirrel, which gobbled it up eagerly. The killer straightened up. "It'll be dead in fifteen minutes," he said with a smile. "You should watch, it's fascinating." With that, he walked away. Tony listened until a squeak of metal hinges and the thud of a heavy door ended the sound of footsteps. His captor was gone.

Then his eyes wandered back to the box. Through the clear plastic, he could see the squirrel scurrying around in the box, clearly in distress. He watched as it started twisting its body into unnatural positions, glad that the lid blocked out most of what must have been whines of agony. After a while, the squirrel stopped its frantic movements and lay twitching in a corner. Then, finally, it was completely still. The squirrel was dead and Tony knew he was next.


	10. A Rescue

**Rating: **FR15

**Category:** Gen

**Pairing:** None

**Characters:** Tony, the whole team

**Genre:** Casefile

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** When a Petty Officer's decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger. Written for the _Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge _and the _Casefile Challenge_ at NFA and inspired by the _Chinese Whisper Challenge_.

**Chapter Warnings:** Some violence, but nothing you wouldn't see on the show.

**A/N:** I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story, but particularly to Gail Cregg and Mc7ism who have faithfully commented on every single chapter, and even offered me help and kind words beyond that. You rock! :)  
>I also want to thank my anonymous reviews for taking the time to leave a comment. I'm sorry I don't have the possibility of replying to you guys directly.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine: A Rescue<strong>

"Come on, McGee, we've got to work faster!" Abby cried, her fingers moving over the keyboard so fast they were a blur. "We've got to crack the phone's encryption!"

McGee was standing next to her at her computer, his fingers moving equally quickly. "I'm doing my best."

"Well, you've got to do it faster, we both do! Tony's out there somewhere, in danger. We've got to find out where the smugglers had him taken before it's too late!"

"I know, but I-" The lines of code on the monitor suddenly changed to a welcome screen. "We're in," McGee said, hardly daring to believe it.

"But we still have a problem," Abby informed him, already rooting around in the directory. "He has tons of files. It'll take forever to look through all of them!"

McGee thought fast. "Tony went missing tonight, so let's focus first on any files that were created or changed today."

They both worked feverishly in silence for a while; the only sound besides Abby's ever-present music their rapid-fire typing.

"McGee, I've got something!" Abby called, pulling off the headphones she'd donned to check audio files.

"So do I!"

They looked at each other.

"Call Gibbs!"

* * *

><p>"Thanks, Abs." Outside Interrogation, Gibbs closed his cell phone and turned to Fornell, who had been listening in on the call. "You got that?"<p>

"Yeah. Let's go get 'em." Together they entered the room where Abernathy and his lawyer still sat.

"Mr. Abernathy, we're charging you with illegal wildlife trade," Fornell said.

"And the murder of a United States Naval Officer," Gibbs added.

Abernathy looked surprised, but his lawyer quickly jumped in, preventing him from saying anything. "Those allegations are absurd. My client has nothing to do with either."

Gibbs gave a quick signal to the technician in Observation, and an audio file started playing over the loudspeakers.

Lombard's voice was clearly distinguishable. "… and Miss Emmons would like a cheetah fur."

"That could be a problem," Dawson's voice said. "We don't have contacts in the right parts of Africa."

"I have several friends in South Africa," Abernathy announced on the tape. "We will contact them. Though of course they won't want to discuss the more sensitive aspects over such a long distance. Dawson, could you arrange for a fact-finding mission to take you there?"

Abernathy's lawyer exchanged glances with his client, minutely shaking his head in warning.

"I suppose so. I'll just have to find a way to get away from my aides long enough to meet with your friends."

"Good." Abernathy's voice was speaking again. "They'll know where to find experienced hunters that will cross the border to Botswana for us. They will be able to process the fur there, so our only problem will be to find a suitable courier."

At Gibbs sign, the tape was cut off.

"My client has nothing to say," Abernathy's lawyer declared.

"Well, then it's good that we know enough to do all the talking," Fornell said. "You really shouldn't have let your man, Lombard, record your planning sessions. That was careless."

"Be that as it may, nothing on that tape suggests my client committed murder of any kind."

"We have proof he had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill Petty Officer Jeffrey Thorne," Fornell said.

Abernathy stared at him. "I never murdered anyone! I don't even know who that is."

His lawyer turned to him. "Don't say anything more. They won't be able to prove it."

"We found the inventory Lombard kept of everything you smuggled into the country," Fornell told him. "My men also found the secret room in your library where you kept the smuggled goods. Mrs. Crowley's were still there, since she didn't have a chance to pick up her 'order' yet. But you know what? The inventory says there should be a bottle of croton oil waiting for her, but my men didn't find one there."

Abernathy said nothing, and neither did his lawyer.

"We also checked Lombard's call log," Fornell continued. "Turns out a few minutes after Commander Nelson called him about Petty Officer Thorne, Lombard made one phone call to an untraceable burn phone."

"A hit man," Gibbs clarified.

"The only other time he called that number was right after Agent DiNozzo lost contact with us," Fornell said.

"You knew Thorne was dangerous to your operation," Gibbs growled. "So you hired a killer to poison him."

"And when you noticed that Talley – Agent DiNozzo – had seen too much, you handed him to the killer, too." Fornell added.

"Now wait just one second!" Abernathy said angrily.

"Don't say anything," his lawyer told him.

"No," Abernathy insisted, "I will not be accused of murder! I have never heard of your petty officer before, I have no idea who that might be and I certainly didn't kill him!"

"They don't have any proof," his lawyer tried to console him. "It's all circumstantial."

"There _is_ no proof," Abernathy almost shouted, "because I never ordered anyone to be killed! Not the petty officer and definitely not DiNozzo. Yes, all right, I knew he was a federal agent, but by the time I had found that out he had already left! I never had a chance to confront him, let alone hand him to a killer! I am not a murderer!"

Gibbs gazed intensely at the man for a few seconds, then turned on his heel and left the interrogation room. After one last glance at Abernathy, Fornell followed him.

* * *

><p>"Where is DiNozzo?" Gibbs roared at Lombard, his fists on the interrogation room table and his face within inches of the other man's.<p>

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lombard said with an admirable attempt at defiance, which of course stood no chance against the might of Gibbs fury.

"We decrypted your phone," Fornell told him. "We know all about the wildlife smuggling, and we have enough to pin you for the murder of Petty Officer Thorne. And we have enough on your employers, too, so don't expect them to be able to get you a lighter sentence. The only way to help yourself is to tell us where Agent DiNozzo is."

"I don't–" Lombard began.

"If DiNozzo dies," Gibbs growled in his face, "I will make sure you're tried in Virginia. Killing a federal agent will get you the death penalty."

"He's right," Fornell said. "And Virginia has the highest execution rate in the US. If you want to avoid death row tell us where to find Agent DiNozzo before it's too late."

Lombard gulped and took a deep breath. "Okay, okay, I'll cooperate."

"Where is DiNozzo?" Gibbs hissed.

"I don't know."

Gibbs strode towards the door. "Well, you had your chance," Fornell said, turning to follow him.

"Wait!" Lombard called. "I really don't know where he is! But I'll tell you everything else I know!"

The two agents turned back to face him. "Who did you hire?" Fornell asked.

"Jason. My brother Jason has him." Lombard said breathlessly.

"You don't have a brother," Fornell interrupted him. He knew all the files on the triumvirate practically by heart.

"My stepbrother. Jason Kendall."

"Where is he?" Gibbs ground out.

"I swear I don't know. He's wanted in Maine for murder and he's on the run. He came to me last week, and I gave him cash, but I didn't want to know where he was staying or where he was going. I did give him a burn phone, though, just in case. Then, when Commander Nelson called to warn about Thorne, I called Jason. The 'triumvirate' always pretend they're not doing anything wrong, they're just circumventing moralistic trade laws. Well, that's because I do all the dirty work. So I called Jason and told him there was someone I needed to get rid of. I gave him the croton oil, too."

Fornell glanced at Gibbs. They definitely had Lombard for Thorne's murder now.

"And then, when today I caught your agent snooping I knocked him out and I called Jason," Lombard continued. "I just told him to take care of it, I really don't know how he's going to do it, or where!"

Gibbs was livid. "How do we find him?"

"I don't know! But you're the FBI, can't you trace his cell phone?"

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, Boss, but the cell phone's turned off. There's no way to trace it," McGee said, trying not to panic. It looked like they had just lost their last chance of finding Tony.<p>

"Abby?" Gibbs was as desperate as they all were.

She shook her head. "There's already a BOLO out on Jason Kendall, he's wanted in connection with three murders. He's going to be hiding out of sight. The only other thing I had was the dark van, but that was a total bust. It belongs to the FBI, they were on the way to some kind of drug bust. I've got nothing, Gibbs."

This was it, McGee realized. They had no more cards up their sleeves. They knew who the killer was and why he was killing, but none of that did them any good because they couldn't find him, couldn't get to him in time. Tony was going to die.

At that moment, Jimmy burst through the door. "Agent Gibbs!" he panted. "I think I have a clue."

Gibbs' glare prompted him to continue right away. "I was looking through the stomach content analysis Abby sent, and I noticed that almost everything the squirrel's been eating has a very high lead content." Gibbs intensified glare caused him to stumble over a few words, but he bravely kept on going. "The, uh, I mean, what that means is that wherever the squirrel was living the ground probably has lead contamination."

"Abby, check the warehouse where we found Thorne!" Ziva called in sudden realization.

"What? Why?" Abby asked, nevertheless already typing the right commands.

"You said Thorne was brought there in a wheelbarrow! We thought the killer only used it to get the body from the van to the warehouse, but if the van wasn't the killer's–"

"He could have come from nearby!" Abby completed the thought. "If he was in one of the other warehouses, he could have used the wheelbarrow to quickly move the body without anyone seeing him."

"It makes sense," McGee said. "He's on the run, he can't risk being seen, so hiding out in an old warehouse where there are almost no people around is perfect. He's probably one of the homeless living there!"

"Found it!" Abby cried. "There's a lead contamination in the southeast area of the warehouse complex. The only thing there is an abandoned underground storage!"

"That's where Tony is!" McGee exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

"I'll send the coordinates to your GPS!" Abby called after the agents who has already rushed out the door.

* * *

><p>The light bulb above him had gone out, plunging Tony into blackness again. He felt like he had been there for an eternity, but in reality it couldn't have been more than a few hours. The sky was still velvety darkness. The box with the now dead squirrel was also still there, a warning of what was to come. But Tony had never been one to accept fate lying down, literally in this case.<p>

Since his captor had left, Tony had been tugging at the ropes binding his hands and feet together. The one around his wrists wouldn't budge, though Tony had earned some definite rope burn for his efforts. The one around his ankles, however, had started to give just a little bit.

Tony twisted and turned and wiggled his feet, scraping his bare back along the rough floor until he finally found the position that seemed to maximize the give. Then he tugged at it, trying to pull his feet apart, to stretch the rope. Bit by slow bit he managed to get his feet more wiggle room until finally he thought he had enough to slip a foot out of the binding.

At that moment, a squeak announced the return of the killer and Tony lay still, trying to conceal his efforts. There was the click of the light switch and suddenly the bulb was on again. Squinting, Tony saw his captor approach and lean over the box with the dead squirrel. In his hand he held a large knife. In one swift movement, he severed the squirrel's head from its body. Tony remembered it was the same thing he had done to the other squirrel, and then Thorne.

"Now isn't that better?" he killer asked. "Before, it could have just been sleeping, but now you can see it's dead. I like it that way, it's like checking something off a list. Check, that's done."

"Is that why you dumped the body the way you did?" Tony asked, playing for time, "To show everyone that you'd finished with Thorne?"

The killer ignored the question completely and pulled the now familiar small bottle from his pocket. "It's your turn now," he said almost cheerfully. He leaned forward, opening the bottle and preparing to pour it into Tony's mouth. Tony clenched his jaw and slowly shimmied his foot through the tangle of rope.

The killer laughed. "The other one tried that, too, you know," and for a second Tony thought he'd seen the loosened rope, but then the man continued. "I'll get you to open up, there's really no point in refusing." Tony managed to get a deep breath in before the killer pinched his nose shut. At the same time, he managed to slide his right foot out of the rope.

In one swift movement he rolled himself onto his side towards the killer and thrust his right knee upward, hitting the killer's knee from behind and sending him toppling to the ground. The bottle of croton oil fell and Tony hissed at the intense burn as some of it splashed onto his bare chest. He didn't have time to think about it, though.

The killer was getting back to his feet, his knife now in his left hand. The right one he was cradling close to his body, it had obviously gotten a full dose of the croton oil. Making use of that fact, Tony kicked out, hitting the injured hand and making the killer involuntarily jerk backwards, falling back on the ground. He kept his grip on the knife, however.

Tony rolled onto his back, trying to get to his feet, but the killer was already at his side again, raising the knife. Tony twisted his body out of the way, but felt a stinging in his left arm that meant he hadn't twisted far enough. There was a roaring noise and bright white light suddenly streamed through the room. Then the pain hit Tony full force, robbing him of his breath for the crucial second the killer needed to straddle his legs. With loud thudding ringing in his ears, Tony watched helplessly as the killer raised the knife.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a gunshot and then the killer was sliding sideways off Tony's legs. There was brightness and noise and pain and then somehow the killer's body was gone and there were strong, warm arms wrapped around Tony.

"I've got you," said a voice Tony would recognize anywhere, and relieved beyond expression he gave up the struggle.

"I've got you," Gibbs repeated, and Tony let the warm velvety blackness envelop his consciousness.

* * *

><p>A day and a half later, Tony was back at his desk in the Squad Room. His left arm was bandaged where the knife had stabbed him, as was his chest where the croton oil had produced burn-like blisters, but he had insisted on coming back to work. One day of recovering was enough, he figured.<p>

Besides, ZNN was reporting on the huge story of a high-society wildlife smuggling ring being brought down at the same time as a wanted murderer was found and killed, and had against all odds not only mentioned NCIS along with the FBI, but also shown his picture. Such fame and glory was meant to be enjoyed with his teammates, not alone on his couch.

Said teammates were currently filling out paperwork and generally pretending they hadn't missed him or been in any way worried about him. Tony wouldn't have it any other way.

"Tony!" The shriek made him look up to see Abby running across the room and pulling him into a tight hug. Tony suspected she had bribed the security guards to let her know the minute he entered the building.

"Abs," he squeaked as she pressed too hard against his chest. "Injured, remember?"

She let go immediately. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot, are you okay? Why are you here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be at home, healing?"

Tony shrugged as much as his bandages would permit. "I got bored. Besides, I wanted to thank you. If you hadn't found out where I was, my picture would be in the news for a very different reason. So I thought I'd get you this." He held up a cherry tootsie pop.

Abby's face fell.

"What is it?" Tony asked. "I thought you loved them only two days ago?"

"Two hundred and five," she sighed by way of an explanation. When he still looked puzzled, she added. "That's my result. That's the average amount of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop. And I've checked my mechanic tongue's results twenty-five times by myself, and only on cherry tootsie pops. That's 5125 licks of fake cherry flavor and I really, really just never want to taste cherry flavor again, ever. I'm sorry, I know you meant well."

Tony grinned. "In that case, it's good I brought a back-up present." From under his desk he pulled out a super-sized Caf-Pow.

Abby squealed. "You did that on purpose with the lollipop!" she accused delightedly. Tony didn't deny it.

Abby wrapped him in another, more careful, hug, and then bounded off back to her lab, her giant Caf-Pow cradled to her chest.

Tony leaned back and breathed deeply, looking up at the skylight for a second before the ding of the elevator caught his attention.

His mouth hung open when he saw who stepped out of it. "Camille?" he said, not believing his eyes.

"Tony!" she cried, rushing over. "I'm so sorry! I never should have stood you up! It's just, I talked to another woman at the bar where we met and she said you were a total jerk, and that I should avoid you. But then I saw you on ZNN this morning, and you're a hero! So that's why I'm here now, to say I'm sorry. And to ask if you still want to go on a date, maybe tonight?"

Tony grinned. "How about right now?" he asked slyly. Gibbs wasn't there to stop him, and anyway, he was still recovering, surely that entitled him to an early lunch break.

Looking back from the elevator, he took a moment to enjoy McGee's and Ziva's expressions. Life was good.


End file.
